New Year opens with work!

Posted on January 11, 2010
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The Mountain Circus Arts crew got great news on the 2nd of January. Both of our major malls in Knoxville have hired us on for another season of Elves, Pirates and Mad Scientists and have also added a Dino Hunter, a Chef, and a World Explorer.

Birthday parties are coming in pretty heavy as well so weekends are filling up pretty fast.

I think our Fall/Christmas season was one of our best ever. We had steady corporate clients throughout the quarter and private parties really kicked in during December. We had four elves working pretty steady for about six weeks and have booked extra Christmas 2010 shows as a result. Once you see us, you’ll want us for your event.

This year’s Elves had all new costuming, juggling equipment and Christmas magic. A great time was had by all.

Christmas Update

Posted on December 16, 2009
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Coming up on our last weekend of Elfing, I thought I should give readers a seasonal review. Sorry for the lack of updates, we’ve been busy.

November 12th and 14th found Papa Elf at West Town Mall and Knoxville Center for the two Santa arrivals. Both crowds were huge and the performances were each unique in their own way.

The Thursday night West Town show was exciting with a dozen full over costumed mascots arriving in a parade ahead of Santa. Papa Elf warmed up the crowd and built the excitement. Once the boss arrived in a red Hummer, Papa lead him through the throng, stopping to talk to children, and into the mall. We then created a parade as hundreds of families followed Santa to his big chair.

The Saturday arrival at Knoxville Center was at noon and featured a big parade all around the outside of the mall with fire trucks, a marching band and hilarious Shriner clowns in a variety of fast little cars. The weather was perfect and the crowd loved every minute.

A week later Papa Elf began his weekly visits to both malls spending the day entertaining families in line to see Santa and strolling through the rest of the giant hallways juggling, performing close up magic and generally making people smile.

In early December, Dipsy the Elf and Papa performed over a three day period at the historical Biltmore Village Dickens Festival.

This was our seventh year at the festival and we saw many familiar faces and brought tons of smiles. It is an outstanding event and is a favorite outing for thousands of visitors who come from miles away to enjoy the lights, the quaint shops and over forty strolling acts.

That same weekend, Papa Elf performed at Black Mountain’s Holly Jolly Christmas for the fourth straight year. The air was crisp and the spirits bright as Black Mountain lit up old town Cherry Street and all the shops stayed open late.

In between all this we’ve been busy with many private parties for companies, neighborhoods and families and have sadly had to turn down many requests for entertainment for the season. Maybe we’ll train more Elves for 2010.

In the meantime you can catch Papa Elf at West Town all afternoon Saturday and early afternoon Sunday before he travels to Knoxville Center to close out the season.

Christmas Cheers everyone!

The Great Zukini at Work

Posted on December 16, 2009
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In between Elf gigs, The Great Zukini managed to squeeze in a performance at The Town Pump in Black Mountain on Friday night, 12/11.
We put together this little video for your viewing pleasure.

Tis The Season!

Posted on December 9, 2009
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November and December have been non-stop. Papa Elf and Dipsy Elf have been very busy spreading holiday cheer throughout Western North Carolina and Tennessee. More later.

October Round Up!

Posted on November 1, 2009
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Oct 10 WNC Nature Center’s Hey Day. I’ll be doing two stage shows again this year at one of Asheville’s greatest attractions. This event serves as an annual fundraiser.

I was only able to pull off one afternoon show at Hey Day this year but it was a good one. I worked under a covered pavilion next to the coyote exhibit and performed for a nice size crowd of almost a hundred guests. The coyote’s hung around and seemed to enjoy it as well.

Oct 16,17,18 LEAF. The Lake Eden Arts Festival’s fall edition will feature me for two shows and a parade. I’ll be doing an expanded clown workshop at this year’s event.

The expanded clown workshop evolved into two different performances this year. The Friday show featured me as Randall, my street performer character followed by a Saturday parade performance by Papa Elf playing his accordion. There were enough jugglers there so I opted for music instead and was very well received. Sunday’s show was my favorite. I dressed in all black and brought The Great Zukini to life to the delight of the very large crowd. My fire eating and juggling were over the top and I even got to sign many autographs!

My experience at LEAF this fall was nothing short of magical. It is easily one of the most refreshing, rejuvenating and positive experiences any performer or guest can have. As The Cowboy Junkies wrote on their blog, “the festival has the feel of a large extended family reunion…an annual ritual for many”.

Oct 31 West Town Mall, Knoxville. Dr. Despicible will be bringing the scares and funny business to Halloween at the Mall. Show time is 8:00 pm.

The return of Dr. Despicable last night at West Town was nothing short of amazing. I had my largest and maybe most enthusiastic audience for one of my shows ever! Well over three hundred people crowded around the amphitheater at center court after an evening of trick or treating at the mall. Of course their enthusiasm was probably greatly enhanced by a large infusion of sugar, but still…

I ran through a wide variety of juggling, magic and crowd interaction using many kids from the audience. I have a new magic trick involving disappearing water that brought gasps and ‘OOOH’ s from the crowd and my umbrella mime routine with the umbrella that has a mind of it’s own brought the house down. My final fire eating and extended applause was just delightful and I posed for picture after picture after the show.

I love that mall! Thanks Lauren!

24th Annual International Festival

Posted on October 7, 2009
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Fifty thousand people and I had a wonderful three day weekend in Raleigh at the 24th Annual International Festival. It was my first time there and wow, what an amazing event. Dozens of countries are represented with booths filled with country based art, clothing and other products. The food was fantastic, served from behind nicely done facades representing each country. The participants and guests all seemed to be having a great time. Two stages provided music, dance and drums and a handful of entertainers facilitated a delightful and action packed kid’s area.

I had the good fortune to work with Marcie from Balloon Fairy Magic and Kenny the Clown. Marcie and Kenny are Asheville’s premier balloon twisters and Kenny is a truly great circus style performer with impressive unicycle, juggling and comedy skills. We provided twenty eight hours of entertainment over the three days.

“Sophia’s Corner”, the kid’s area, also offered painting on canvas, games, a high end face painting team, juggling lessons, story telling and more. The rest of the corner centered around two amazing acrobatic performers from Acro Entertainment in Raleigh. Kaci and Katie were just the perfect touch to the whole image of fun for kids. Visit their website and you’ll see what I mean. I just went there to get their url to link and saw that those clever girls have already updated their blog to include us! They are just remarkable entertainers with acrobatic skills that blend the difficult and perplexing with silliness and timing to generate non-stop smiles.

If I were a kid, I would have been stoked to have this much genuine professional entertainment all in one place, geared just for me. The International Festival was simply great. Highly recommended.

Stay tuned for pictures from Jonathan Lee.

The Pirate Returns

Posted on September 26, 2009
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Arrtimus Grimm returned to action recently at Knoxville Center for their annual Pirate Adventure. Once again my rubber rat was the biggest hit of the show. Amazing juggling? Cool magic? Awesome pirate costume? Naw, none of that can compete with the allure of petting a rubber rat. Who knew? A parent at the event asked me where to find one. She said it might be better than getting her child the new puppy he has been asking for!

Busy Fall

Posted on September 13, 2009
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This weekend kicks off a fun filled fall season with shows at two festivals, two malls and a great mix of other public and private events. Some highlights follow:

Sept 12 Carolina Ready Mix, Swannanoa. This event is an annual Customer Appreciation Day and this will mark my second year. Last year I went as Fredzo but this year I’ll be going as Randall so I can eat fire. I’ll be there from 3-5pm and the event is open to the public.

Sept 19 Knoxville Center Mall. I reprise Arrtimus Grimm for Pirate Days in Knoxville on this Saturday. You can read about my spring pirate adventure in Knoxville below.

Sept 27 Flat Rock Music Festival. I have the prime Sunday slot at 1:00 pm at the kids stage. After many years of trying to get into this festival, I’m finally here. Hopefully I’ll establish a tradition and this can be a regular part of my autumns for years to come.

Oct 2, 3, 4 24th International Festival of Raleigh. I’ll be traveling with two other regional performers for three days of fun in Raleigh.

Oct 10 WNC Nature Center’s Hey Day. I’ll be doing two stage shows again this year at one of Asheville’s greatest attractions. This event serves as an annual fundraiser.

Oct 16,17,18 LEAF. The Lake Eden Arts Festival’s fall edition will feature me for two shows and a parade. I’ll be doing an expanded clown workshop at this year’s event.

Oct 31 West Town Mall, Knoxville. Dr. Despicible will be bringing the scares and funny business to Halloween at the Mall. Show time is 8:00 pm.

Nov 12 West Town Mall Santa arrival. Papa Elf will be back in action at 6:00 pm to magically bring Santa down from the North Pole.

Nov 14 Knoxville Center Santa arrival. Papa Elf repeats his magic across town. This time at 11:00 am.

Nov 28, 29 West Town Mall and Knoxville Center. Papa Elf brings his weekly visits, strolling with juggling and magic, back to the malls in Knoxville for the season. Hours are 12pm-6:00 pm.

Dec 5, 6 West Town Mall and Knoxville Center

Dec 12, 13 West Town Mall and Knoxville Center

Dec 19, 20 West TownM and knoxville Center

The street and private parties

Posted on August 23, 2009
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I’ve had a flurry of private events in August and have tried to stay busy downtown.

The strip of bricks and restaurants at Pack Square was busy tonight. I arrived later than I wanted and the families with kids crowd faded away pretty early but I still had a great time and made a little money and a bunch of smiles.

Kenny the Clown was there twisting his amazing balloon creations. He does Jerry Garcia, bicycles and more. He is also a great juggler and unicycle rider but has been sticking to balloons lately. A new puppeteer is in town doing wonderful work with large marionettes and he was there as well. His puppets are musicians who play music and dance to soundtracks. Unique and skilled, he was delighting a nice size audience before a policeman told him he couldn’t use an amplifier. He told him he could finish his act but would have to move on after that. Ridiculous.

I also got to spend a little time with a clown/juggler/magician named Ben who is unfortunately leaving for Vermont on Monday after a two week stay. He is a full time traveling street performer that looks like a leprechaun and has an engaging personality that draws in everyone and creates instant smiles. I met Ben last year when he was in town and I was just starting elf season. He would make the perfect elf! If I go downtown tomorrow and see him. I’ll try to get a picture. We traded ideas for a couple of routines, gags and juggles.

Wedding Vow Renewal

Posted on August 4, 2009
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I had the honor of performing for Jeff and Debbie Rometti on Saturday at a cool campground near Old Fort. The place had lovely camp sites beside gentle streams, a nice pavilion for the ceremony, put-put golf, a fully manned water slide, and a great club house with karaoke, a movie screen, horse shoes and a food facility.

I would highly recommend Sky Island Retreat if you’re looking for a neat place to camp.

We probably had forty guests or so and everyone seemed to enjoy my warm-up for the ceremony. The pictures were taken by guest Susan Deal who took all the ceremony pictures from her laptop’s web cam. She’s also building a compilation for Jeff and Debbie.

Not only was the ceremony a renewal of their vows, it was also their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.