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==In the Spotlight==
 
==In the Spotlight==
  
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===CON COLLEANO===  
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===RUSSIA'S FIRST NATIONAL CIRCUS===  
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[[Image:Con_Colleano_2.jpg|right|120px]]Near the end of the 19th century, the Sullivan family—the family was later to adopt the professional name of Colleano—were obscure boxing show and carnival people who wandered the eastern states of Australia, turning up at every kind of country show or race meeting. Old Cornelius Sullivan was known as "Con" Sullivan. A boxing troupe showman by profession, he hired aspiring young fighters in the cities and took them away to the bush to stand on his line-up boards to take on all and any challengers. Con Sullivan and Vittorine Julie Robinson [sic] were married at Narrabri, New South Wales, on October 31, 1894. Vittorine Julia was born at Narrabri on October 23, 1878, the daughter of William Robertson [sic], a shearer, aged thirty-four years, and a native of the island of St Thomas in the West Indies (now one of the Virgin Islands), and Julia Robertson, née Saunders, aged thirty-three years, a half-caste Aboriginal woman native of Wee Waa, New South Wales....  ([[Con Colleano|more...]])
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[[Image:Con_Colleano_2.jpg|right|120px]]On November 22, 1845, the Italian equestrian Alessandro Guerra and his troupe gave their first performance in the circus they had just built on the old Place des Manèges—the "merry-go-round square", today’s Theatre Square—in St. Petersburg, in the shadow of the stately Kamennyi Theatre (the "stone theatre"). The Kamennyi was also known as the Bolshoi Theatre (the "grand" theatre), and like its homonym in Moscow, it housed the Imperial Ballet and Opera companies. For a long time, the vast Place des Manèges had welcomed visiting fairs and their merry-go-rounds, but the presence of the theater had since redeemed the square's prestige, and Guerra found himself in ideal surroundings. Guerra was fifty-five in 1845. Born in Rome, Italy, he had started his career at Vienna's Circus Gymnasticus, under the management of the Latvian equestrian Christopher de Bach, whose daughter, Elisa, Alessandro had seduced and married. Then, in 1826, he had created his own company, which toured under the name (fashionable at the time) of ''Cirque Olympique''. After the death of his father-in-law, Guerra engaged into a bitter rivalry with de Bach's widow, the beautiful Laura de Bach, and then went to compete against Ernst Renz in Berlin before settling in the Capital of All Russias. Guerra was a remarkable trick-rider, famous for his aggressive manner in the ring (which he also displayed in private life), and which got him a nickname:''Il Furioso''....  ([[Russia's First National Circus|more...]])
  
 
==New Biographies==
 
==New Biographies==

Revision as of 21:01, 1 January 2011

Welcome to Circopedia,
the free encyclopedia of the international circus.
A project of the Big Apple Circus,
inspired and funded by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.

In the Spotlight

RUSSIA'S FIRST NATIONAL CIRCUS

Con Colleano 2.jpg
On November 22, 1845, the Italian equestrian Alessandro Guerra and his troupe gave their first performance in the circus they had just built on the old Place des Manèges—the "merry-go-round square", today’s Theatre Square—in St. Petersburg, in the shadow of the stately Kamennyi Theatre (the "stone theatre"). The Kamennyi was also known as the Bolshoi Theatre (the "grand" theatre), and like its homonym in Moscow, it housed the Imperial Ballet and Opera companies. For a long time, the vast Place des Manèges had welcomed visiting fairs and their merry-go-rounds, but the presence of the theater had since redeemed the square's prestige, and Guerra found himself in ideal surroundings. Guerra was fifty-five in 1845. Born in Rome, Italy, he had started his career at Vienna's Circus Gymnasticus, under the management of the Latvian equestrian Christopher de Bach, whose daughter, Elisa, Alessandro had seduced and married. Then, in 1826, he had created his own company, which toured under the name (fashionable at the time) of Cirque Olympique. After the death of his father-in-law, Guerra engaged into a bitter rivalry with de Bach's widow, the beautiful Laura de Bach, and then went to compete against Ernst Renz in Berlin before settling in the Capital of All Russias. Guerra was a remarkable trickAny specific exercise in a circus act.-rider, famous for his aggressive manner in the ring (which he also displayed in private life), and which got him a nickname:Il Furioso.... (more...)

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