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==In The Spotlight==
 
==In The Spotlight==
  
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===STRUPPI HANNEFORD===
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===TITO GAONA===
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[[File:Princess_Tajana_Portrait.jpg|right|300px]]
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[[File:Tito_Gaona_1982.jpg|right|400px]]
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Struppi Hanneford (1931-2014) was a major star aerialist before becoming a high-wire dancer, a wild animal trainer, and eventually, one of the United States’ foremost circus producers along with her husband, Tommy Hanneford (1927-2005). Her circus career, both as an artist and a producer, spanned the entire second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first.
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The Gaonas are a large Mexican circus family. Since the flying trapeze has long been a specialty of the Mexican circus, it was inevitable that flying acts featuring members of the Gaona family would call themselves, with some legitimacy, the Flying Gaonas. And indeed, this has happened. To the circus world, however, there has been one and only one Flying Gaonas: the act in which, for 35 years, Tito Gaona caught flawless triple somersaults with extraordinary grace and astonishing consistency.
  
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She was born Gertrude Zimmerman on September 26, 1931 in Speyer, a small town in Rhineland-Palatinate, near Mannheim in Germany. Her family had no connection with the circus or the performing arts: Her father was a baker, and her mother a homemaker. Yet at a very young age, Gertrude showed a keen interest for gymnastics and all things physical, which was strongly encouraged by her parents—in a country where, at the time, physical education was kept in very high regard.
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Victor Gaona Murillo (1925-2016) was born to an old, prolific Mexican circus family that traces its roots to the Circo Gaona y León, created in 1891 by Bernabé Gaona Ramos, a former military officer (whose brother, Rodolfo, was a well-known torero), and Carlos León, a trapeze artist. Victor's father, also named Bernabé, was a celebrated clown in Mexico under the name of Yoyito.
  
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As a little child, Gertrude used to hang from a bar that her father held with his hands; she enjoyed it, and created little routines of her own. When she was seven, her mother heard of a former trapeze artist whose husband was in the military, and who gave trapeze lessons to augment the family income. Thus Gertrude (Trude) Johann entered the life of Gertrude Zimmerman and became her trapeze teacher.  
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Victor married María Teresa Palencia, who didn't belong to a circus family. Together they had six children: Maria Guadalupe ("Lupe"), Jorge Armando ("Mando," born November 19, 1943), Silvia Graciela ("Chela," born May 23, 1945), Victor Daniel ("Tito," born August 29, 1947), Ricardo ("Richie," born May 25, 1957), José, and Marco Antonio.
  
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Trude Johann is also credited with giving Gertrude the nickname under which she would be known for the rest of her life, "Struppi." It was a diminutive of ''Struppigel'', a made-up word that is hard to translate, but would mean something like "hedgehog turned wild," perhaps a good description of what Gertrude’s character was like then—and indeed in adulthood Struppi was a very strong woman, in all meanings of the term.  
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The children weren't thrown immediately into the world of the circus. They went to school like any other kids in their hometown of Guadalajara. During their summer vacations, they visited their father, who toured with various circuses in the United States. But they had circus blood in their veins, and Tito often claimed that, by age three, he already wanted to join the circus. When he saw the film Trapeze (1956)—Carol Reed's tale of an aging flyer and his gifted young pupil, starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Gina Lollobrigida—Tito decided he wanted to be a flyer. Or so he claims. By the time the movie came out, he'd already had a taste of the trapeze: in the summer of 1954, at age seven, he was announced as "the world's youngest flyer," with the Flying Valentines at Tom Packs Circus in New Orleans.... ([[Flying Gaonas|more...]])
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Little Struppi showed good dispositions for trapeze, and eventually Trude built an act for her. She believed Struppi was ready to perform, but WWII had broken out and it was not the best time to start a career if you were not born into the business:  The project didn’t come to fruition. Furthermore, as the war dragged on, life became increasingly difficult in Germany, and Struppi and Trude’s worlds eventually drifted apart.
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Nonetheless, Struppi continued training in gymnastics, took ballet classes, and dreaming of participating one day in the Olympics (which had been held in Berlin in 1936 and had left a strong impression on the five-year-old girl she was then), she also began to train in Competitive Diving. Meanwhile the Wehrmacht had drafted Struppi’s father; some time later he was killed in action.... ([[Struppi Hanneford|more...]])
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==New Essays and Biographies==
 
==New Essays and Biographies==
  
 +
* [[Elsane]], Trapezist
 
* [[Nouveau_Cirque_(Paris)/fr|Nouveau Cirque]], History — Version Française (French Version)
 
* [[Nouveau_Cirque_(Paris)/fr|Nouveau Cirque]], History — Version Française (French Version)
 
* [[Cirque Medrano (Paris)/fr|Cirque Medrano]], History — Version Française (French Version)
 
* [[Cirque Medrano (Paris)/fr|Cirque Medrano]], History — Version Française (French Version)
 
* [[The Reverhos]], Acrobatic Jugglers
 
* [[The Reverhos]], Acrobatic Jugglers
 
* [[Francis Brunn]], Juggler
 
* [[Francis Brunn]], Juggler
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* [[Tereza Durova]], Animal Trainer
 
  
 
==New Videos==
 
==New Videos==

Latest revision as of 00:23, 12 March 2025


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Circopedia is an independent educational website, originally created as a project of the non-profit Big Apple Circus.

In The Spotlight

TITO GAONA

Tito Gaona 1982.jpg

The Gaonas are a large Mexican circus family. Since the flying trapezeAerial act in which an acrobat is propelled from a trapeze to a catcher, or to another trapeze. (See also: Short-distance Flying Trapeze) has long been a specialty of the Mexican circus, it was inevitable that flying acts featuring members of the Gaona family would call themselves, with some legitimacy, the Flying Gaonas. And indeed, this has happened. To the circus world, however, there has been one and only one Flying Gaonas: the act in which, for 35 years, Tito Gaona caught flawless triple somersaults with extraordinary grace and astonishing consistency.

Victor Gaona Murillo (1925-2016) was born to an old, prolific Mexican circus family that traces its roots to the Circo Gaona y León, created in 1891 by Bernabé Gaona Ramos, a former military officer (whose brother, Rodolfo, was a well-known torero), and Carlos León, a trapeze artist. Victor's father, also named Bernabé, was a celebrated clown in Mexico under the name of Yoyito.

Victor married María Teresa Palencia, who didn't belong to a circus family. Together they had six children: Maria Guadalupe ("Lupe"), Jorge Armando ("Mando," born November 19, 1943), Silvia Graciela ("Chela," born May 23, 1945), Victor Daniel ("Tito," born August 29, 1947), Ricardo ("Richie," born May 25, 1957), José, and Marco Antonio.

The children weren't thrown immediately into the world of the circus. They went to school like any other kids in their hometown of Guadalajara. During their summer vacations, they visited their father, who toured with various circuses in the United States. But they had circus blood in their veins, and Tito often claimed that, by age three, he already wanted to join the circus. When he saw the film Trapeze (1956)—Carol Reed's tale of an aging flyerAn acrobat that is propelled in the air, either in a flying act, or in an acrobatic act (i.e. teeterboard). and his gifted young pupil, starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Gina Lollobrigida—Tito decided he wanted to be a flyerAn acrobat that is propelled in the air, either in a flying act, or in an acrobatic act (i.e. teeterboard).. Or so he claims. By the time the movie came out, he'd already had a taste of the trapeze: in the summer of 1954, at age seven, he was announced as "the world's youngest flyerAn acrobat that is propelled in the air, either in a flying act, or in an acrobatic act (i.e. teeterboard).," with the Flying Valentines at Tom Packs Circus in New Orleans.... (more...)

New Essays and Biographies

New Videos

  • Evelyn & André, aerial perchA hanging perch, from where the performers hang with the help of hand or ankle loops. (French: Bambou - Russian: Bambuk) (1966)
  • The Berosinis, Risley actAct performed by Icarists, in which one acrobat, lying on his back, juggles another acrobat with his feet. (Named after Richard Risley Carlisle, who developed this type of act.) (1964)
  • Pieric and Djuboudiep, clowns (1993)
  • Duo Disar, strap actAerial act performed hanging from a pair of fabric or leather straps. (See Aerial Straps.) (2024)
  • Anvar Sattarov & Nikolai Konovalov, clowns (2023)

New Oral Histories

Circopedia Books

A Message from the Founder

CIRCOPEDIA is a constantly evolving and expanding archive of the international circus, maintained by reliable circus historians and specialists. 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.

Dominique Jando
Founder and Curator
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