About

The Gym Dandies Children’s Circus of Scarborough, Maine began in 1981 when Jon Cahill started incorporating circus arts skills into the physical education program.  He soon realized that there were numerous benefits that could be realized by children as a result of participating in this challenging and exciting endeavor, and that circus arts had the potential to be much more than just an alternate activity in the physical education curriculum.  But, something was missing.  Children love to demonstrate their skills. They needed to perform!  Circus arts are naturally motivating for children at this age and soon it became obvious that juggling, although challenging, was not enough.  “The Gym Dandies” held what might have been the “World’s First Juggle -A-Thon” in the spring of 1981.  Funds raised from the Juggle-A-Thon went toward the purchase of unicycles.  By the spring of 1982, after a great deal of hard work,  “The Gym Dandies” had evolved into a stylized unicycling and juggling group. This was the birth of “The Gym Dandies”.