THE 4 PLEASURES OF GETTING ''HIGH''!
Oldcatman knows......
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****This college encourages students to get high — on a tightrope, trapeze or trampoline!!
Normal, Ill.—Some teenagers leave home to go to college. Some leave to join the circus. Nena Woo did both.
Woo attends Illinois State University and is a member of one of the rarest organizations on U.S. campuses: a collegiate circus.
"When I left high school, I really wanted something new, something different," said Woo, a senior from Bourbonnais, Ill. "I wanted to do something I didn't even know about, and when I found this, I was like, 'Wow, this is it.' "
Her specialty is the aerial hoop, a metal contraption about 40 inches in diameter suspended about 30 feet from the floor. Woo performs in and around it. She also walks the tight wire and swings on the trapeze. Never mind that she is afraid of heights.
"I hate heights," she said. "But I hate that I hate heights. I'm trying to get rid of it."
Illinois State's Gamma Phi Circus will mark its 80th year of performing with three shows starting Friday. It is one of only two university circuses; the other is Florida State's Flying High Circus, started in 1947 by an Illinois State alum.
Performers don't receive scholarship money or academic credit, and they aren't paid. Some have performing experience but most of the 60 student members have none.
"I think we have the most dedicated, hardest-working students on campus," circus Director Marcus Alouan said. "They give up hours and hours of time. They put their bodies through incredible amounts of abuse and stress and … they do it because they love it."
The two-hour performances draw an average audience of 6,000 to the university's Redbird Arena and feature standard circus fare — juggling, tumbling, unicycles, teeterboard and clowns.
Among other crowd-pleasing acts is the "wall trampoline," where two of the contraptions are separated by a 12-foot-wall of bulletproof glass that the trampoline team scales and performs maneuvers on.
In circus history, the Normal area is considered almost hallowed ground. Word started to circulate in the 1870s about the abundance of local barns, where performers could set up their high wires and other aerial rigging for a modest price and train in the off-season — October through April.
Circus people soon were flocking to the area, said university circus historian Maureen Brunsdale.
Gamma Phi started in 1926, when Clifford "Pop" Horton, a robust physical education teacher, organized a group of male students to tumble and perform pyramids at basketball and football games. In 1931, Horton rallied the boys to perform circus-like acrobatics on Friday and Saturday evenings. Women were added to the show around 1939.
Today the circus' annual budget is about $55,000, generated through ticket sales, summer camps and donations, said Deb Wylie, circus program coordinator.
Each member is required to attend three- to five-hour practices three nights a week and work out in the Gamma Phi gym another few hours a week. Apart from the time demands, performers deal with a wide assortment of injuries — everything from separated shoulders to broken bones.
But they say the work and risks are worth it. So does the oldest living Gamma Phi alum, Bob Walsh, 97, who owned and operated a grain elevator. He performed from 1933 to '37, and continues to provide financial support.
"I think it helped you to concentrate," Walsh said of his circus days. "I think it helped you to develop your body. … I just enjoyed it."
AP
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