Press Release:
The Gym Dandies Children’s Circus Hold 25th Anniversary Performances
The 25th anniversary performances will WOW the audience for sure with more than sixty, six-foot high, Giraffe unicycles, over one hundred smaller unicycles, seventeen globe walkers, hundreds of jugglers, Yo-Yo artists, Chinese stilts, and specialized stunt unicycle demonstrations. All performers are Scarborough School Children.
The performances will be held in the new Scarborough High School Gymnasium on Thursday, April 6 and Friday, April 7, 2006. The box office opens at 6:00PM. The performances begin at 6:30PM. Admission fees are $5.00 for adults, Children FREE (An adult must accompany all children.) and Senior Citizens $3.00.
The Gym Dandies Children’s Circus has been defying gravity since 1981. The founder and director of the group, Jon Cahill, started introducing circus arts skills in his physical education classes in Scarborough, Maine. That same year he started working with ten boys and girls who wanted to spend more time perfecting their skills. This was the beginning of The Gym Dandies Circus Arts Program. Now this unique performing group is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Jon retired form teaching physical education in 2004; however, he continues to direct the group.
The Gym Dandies Children’s Circus is the largest continuously operating children’s circus in the United States with approximately two hundred and twenty members participating in the program each year. The group features routines involving unicycles, various juggling props, Chinese stilts, rolling globes, bolo boards, and more in set performances.
The Gym Dandies program is about helping children experience success. As one of the parents, Mark Bennett, mentioned, “The Gym Dandies program proves that it is possible to have a winner without having a looser”. The entire program is based on individual skill improvement and opportunities for children to cooperatively demonstrate their skills for the purpose of entertaining others.
This past November, The Gym Dandies performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 2005 in New York City, the largest and tallest unicycle ensemble ever to appear in this nationally significant event. The Gym Dandies is the only performing group in the World that can feature as many as fifty or more giraffe unicycles in one routine. The Gym Dandies, one the most talked about entries in the Macy’s Parade, towered over and amazed the 2,500,000 spectators crowded along the 2.5-mile parade route.
This children’s performing group from a small town in New England combines the wonder of a circus with the enthusiasm of young performers, bringing joy to audiences from Montreal, Quebec to our Nation’s Capitol. The Gym Dandies were selected to represent the state of Maine in the National Independence Day Parade in Washington DC in 2000, 2004 and will again perform in this special event in 2006. They were featured performers in the Montreal Cycling Festival in 2002, the world’s largest cycling event. The group has performed at more than one hundred regional venues since it inception. The Gym Dandies have been featured on ZOOM, the nationally televised PBS children’s program in 2001, 2003, and 2004.
Be sure to be at The Gym Dandies Community performances this year. You will not want to miss “The Greatest Kid’s Show on Earth”.
