Tubestock isn't the only way to beat the heat this weekend.
The Big Apple Circus is coming to Hanover this Wednesday through Sunday to offer attractions and entertainment, as well as a chance to recapture your childhood, in a 2,000 seat air-conditioned tent.
Founded 20 years ago by Paul Binder '63, the Big Apple Circus is a one-ring circus which combines a core company of acrobats, clowns, dancers and animal acts with special acts recruited from international competitions and circus festivals in Paris and Monaco.
The circus combines theater and attractions by developing a theme for each year's performances. This year's theme stems from founder and artistic director Binder's love of American cultural history. The circus is set as a medicine show that brings a small, sleepy midwestern town in 1896 to life with its performers and magical elixirs.
Georgia Croft, publicity manager for the Hopkins Center, said this year's acts are some of the best from all over the globe and that most have won international awards.
Performers will include the Eskin company of aerial lifters from the Moscow Circus School, who will perform trapeze acts as well as acrobatics and comedy on the ground. French acrobats will combine dancing with hand-to-hand balancing acts, and quick-change artists will make costume switches in front of the audience "faster than you can imagine," Croft said.
The famous Grandma the Clown -- "the best known clown in the world" -- and a graduate of Barnum and Bailey's clown school, will also perform.
Animal acts will include trainer William Woodcock's trio of elephants, a troupe of performing dogs that garnered rave reviews in the Boston Globe and horses trained by Binder's wife and a descendant of a Belgian circus family, Katya Schumann.
One of the best features in the five story tall circus tent is the seating -- all seats are within 50 feet of the action. Prices range from $8.50 to $23 for Dartmouth students, but Croft said she has sat in both the most expensive and the cheapest seats in past years and there is "good visibility everywhere in the tent."
This summer marks the 15th year that the circus has come to Hanover and it has grown since its debut in the area. The first year Hanover hosted the circus, the circus was held on the Green.
This year, the Big Apple Circus will be held just 3 miles north of the Green at the Fullington Farm on Lyme Road (Route 10).
The circus usually brings 16,000 people to Hanover to see it, and Croft said this year's show has sold more tickets than any other circus of the past.
Tickets are still available for every show. Performances are at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, noon, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday and noon and 4 p.m. on Sunday.
