Difference between revisions of "Main Page"

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==In The Spotlight==
 
==In The Spotlight==
  
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===NELL GIFFORD===
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===CIRCUS KRONE===
  
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[[File:Nell_Gifford_and_wagon.jpeg|right|400px]]The founder of England’s Giffords Circus, Nell Gifford (1974-2019) wrote: "A good circus is a sublimely existential thing, living acutely and only for the present moment." She also wrote: "A good circus should make you cry." She created a circus conform to these ideas, a circus with a soul, which understands its purpose. In time, Giffords Circus has generated an amazingly faithful and enthusiastic following in the countryside of the south of England—not a large territory, but Nell Gifford wanted hers to be a "village-green circus." And indeed, Giffords Circus has this unique quality: it takes its audience into a nostalgic world of quaint simplicity and tangible wonder.
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Circus Krone is the world's oldest circus company: It has been owned and operated continuously by the same family for more than a century and has maintained all that time the standards of quality initiated by its founder, Carl Krone, as well as its original menagerie’s heritage. Its tours in many European countries, especially between the two world wars, have established its fame beyond the confines of Germany, its homeland. In addition, under various incarnations, its permanent circus building in Munich, the Kronebau, has been home to regular winter circus productions since 1919.
  
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Nell Gifford was born Eleanor Rose Stroud on January 24, 1974 in Oxford. Her father, Rick Stroud, was a successful television director and producer, and her mother, Charlotte, née Pumphrey and known as Char, was also artistically inclined. Char had three children from her first marriage with publisher Matthew Bridgewater, among whom Emma Bridgewater, the founder of the eponymous British pottery and ceramics manufacturing company. Nell also had a younger sister, Clover Stroud (b.1975), who became a successful writer. When Nell was ten, the family moved from Oxford to a farm in a village called Minety, in Wiltshire. In the English countryside, horse riding is an integral part of life and Nell became indeed a horse enthusiast.
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Founded by Carl Krone (1833-1900), then developed by his son, Carl Krone, Jr. (1870-1943), the Krone organization typically raised from a fairground menagerie to a giant circus, according to a pattern quite common at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe, triggered by the European tour of the giant American circus Barnum & Bailey, which introduced European audiences to their first three-ring circus traveling with a full-fledged menagerie.
  
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Yet, it is a catastrophic riding accident that brought tragedy into the Stroud and Bridgewater families. In 1991, Char fell from her horse while hunting and suffered a head injury that left her in a coma for two weeks and kept her mentally incapacitated for the following twenty-two years (she passed away in 2013). At the time of the accident, Nell and Clover were eighteen and sixteen respectively and, in effect, they had suddenly lost the brilliant person they had known as their mother. Their lives changed forever..... ([[Nell Gifford|more...]])
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Yet, unlike other enterprises that followed the same model, Circus Krone’s discreet owners remained financially conservative, avoiding the dangerous ostentation of some of their colleagues, and in doing so, they averted the crises and failures that had often plagued their competition. They developed international tour strategies that followed the ever-changing European economic cycles, which were strongly sustained by their successful activities in their home-based circus building, Munich’s Kronebau, established in 1919.
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After WWII and the death of Carl Krone Jr. in 1943, Circus Krone became, remarkably, a woman affair: It has been first led magnificently by Frieda Krone Sembach (1915-1995), Carl’s daughter, then by her daughter, Christel Krone Sembach (1956-2017), and today by Jana Mandana Krone, Christel’s adoptive daughter—the three of them having excelled in equestrian and animal presentations as much as in circus management. Krone has proudly remained during all that time Größter Circus Europas ("Europe’s Largest Circus").... ([[Circus Krone|more...]])
  
 
==New Biographies==
 
==New Biographies==

Revision as of 22:54, 1 May 2020

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Circopedia was originally created with the support of the Big Apple Circus
and inspired and funded by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.

In The Spotlight

CIRCUS KRONE

Circus Krone is the world's oldest circus company: It has been owned and operated continuously by the same family for more than a century and has maintained all that time the standards of quality initiated by its founder, Carl Krone, as well as its original menagerie’s heritage. Its tours in many European countries, especially between the two world wars, have established its fame beyond the confines of Germany, its homeland. In addition, under various incarnations, its permanent circus building in Munich, the Kronebau, has been home to regular winter circus productions since 1919.

Founded by Carl Krone (1833-1900), then developed by his son, Carl Krone, Jr. (1870-1943), the Krone organization typically raised from a fairground menagerie to a giant circus, according to a pattern quite common at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe, triggered by the European tour of the giant American circus Barnum & Bailey, which introduced European audiences to their first three-ring circus traveling with a full-fledged menagerie.

Yet, unlike other enterprises that followed the same model, Circus Krone’s discreet owners remained financially conservative, avoiding the dangerous ostentation of some of their colleagues, and in doing so, they averted the crises and failures that had often plagued their competition. They developed international tour strategies that followed the ever-changing European economic cycles, which were strongly sustained by their successful activities in their home-based circus building, Munich’s Kronebau, established in 1919.

After WWII and the death of Carl Krone Jr. in 1943, Circus Krone became, remarkably, a woman affair: It has been first led magnificently by Frieda Krone Sembach (1915-1995), Carl’s daughter, then by her daughter, Christel Krone Sembach (1956-2017), and today by Jana Mandana Krone, Christel’s adoptive daughter—the three of them having excelled in equestrian and animal presentations as much as in circus management. Krone has proudly remained during all that time Größter Circus Europas ("Europe’s Largest Circus").... (more...)

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CIRCOPEDIA is a constantly evolving and expanding archive of the international circus. New videos, biographies, essays, and documents are added to the site on a weekly—and sometimes daily—basis. Keep visiting us: even if today you don't find what you're looking for, it may well be here tomorrow! And if you are a serious circus scholar and spot a factual or historical inaccuracy, do not hesitate to contact us: we will definitely consider your remarks and suggestions.

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