Events Calendar
In This Section
Most Read Stories
Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)
Man found dead in North Akron home is identified
Dad accused of forcing son into field, killing him
Coventry man killed in crash at I-77 ramp
NFL star Chris Spielman's wife loses cancer battle
College student mistaken for deer, shot to death
Browns' roster nearly devoid of consistent players
Review: You've never seen 'Sound of Music' like this
Blogs:
Pets:
Cat-loving chihuahua suckles seven abandoned kittens
The Heldenfiles:
Friday Night Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
For your Saturday entertainment …
Akron Zips:
Hitchens leads Zips in second-half comeback
Tribe Matters:
Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
Cleveland Browns:
Holmgren expresses interest in Browns position
Kent State Sports:
Kent State blown out in second half, loses to Temple 47-13
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers
Buckeye Blogging:
OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
Varsity Letters:
Four area football teams play tonight
All Da King's Men:
Headed For Disaster
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Will Health Care Reform Pass?
Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (68) Democrats Secure 60 Votes for Cloture
See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic
Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Silverdome Potentially SOLD!
Ohio Travels with Betty:
George is looking for a Thanksgiving buffet in Akron.
Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
HRLite House:
Colloquium at University of Akron
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Human cannonball for Ringling Bros. really hits heights from town to town
By Mary Beth Breckenridge
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 11:46 a.m. EDT, Oct 21, 2009
Lots of kids dream of running away and joining the circus.
Tina Miser did it.
Miser is half of the human cannonball duo with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the celebrated circus that is performing its Zing Zang Zoom spectacular through Monday at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena.
For her, it's the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
Miser, 34, grew up in Peru, Ind., a town that in the 1920s quartered circuses during the winters and later honored that heritage by creating an amateur summer circus for kids. She performed with that circus as a child ''and just got bit by the circus bug,'' she said by phone from Denver, where Ringling was performing earlier this month.
She wanted to become a trapeze artist right out of high school, but her parents insisted on college. So she got her degree from Ball State University, served in the Air Force Reserve and in 1999 returned home and volunteered at the summer circus.
That's where she got reacquainted with Brian Miser, a locally famous performer who'd been in the amateur circus with her and joined Ringling Bros. out of high school.
At the time he was preparing to move from the trapeze to the cannon. ''That was his pickup line,'' Tina Miser recalled with a laugh. '' 'Hey, I'm building a cannon. Would you like to shoot me out of it?' ''
Apparently the line worked. She joined Ringling as the cannon operator, propelling the man who would eventually become her husband out of the device in flames.
Night after night she witnessed the act. ''Man, that looks like fun,'' she remembers thinking. ''I want to try it.''
At first Brian was reluctant to let her because of the danger, she said. When he finally relented, she started small, shooting maybe 30 feet on her first attempt. Her early gymnastics and circus training had given her the acrobatic skills and body awareness she needed for the act, and she built on those, she said.
Then she broke her arm in a training accident. ''So that kind of put me off of the cannon for a while,'' she said.
Still, she persisted. In 2005 she became part of a double-cannonball act with her husband.
Now the tables are turned. Brian Miser is the one shooting his wife out of a cannon along with Ekaterina Borzikova, an aerialist who recently made the transition to human cannonball. The two fly side by side about 65 feet, landing on parallel air bags. (How the cannon works is a trade secret.)
A flight lasts about two seconds, but Miser said her concentration makes it seem longer. ''I really do feel like I'm flying,'' she said.
Always, the emphasis is on safety. Miser said her husband keeps a close eye on the cannon's operation and watches every flight for even the slightest variation or form break that needs correction. A record is kept of every performance, so factors that might affect an upcoming flight can be taken into account.
Nevertheless, ''there's still a margin of error that you can't account for,'' she said. Even though she's made more than 2,000 flights, she said she still has to work up the nerve every time she climbs into the cannon.
But when the lights come up and the audience's excitement builds, she said, ''it's exhilarating.''
That's just the way she imagined it would be back when she was dreaming of a life in the circus, she said. What she didn't expect were the realities of life on the road.
The Misers live in a motor home and spend 48 weeks a year traveling. They're always having to adapt to new surroundings, she said, right down to finding the post office or locating a source of propane. They don't see her parents as often as she'd like or get to participate in the life of a town.
Their almost-6-year-old daughter, Skyler (the name means ''projectile''), doesn't seem to mind, though. This life is all she's known, Miser said.
She said Skyler, who is home-schooled, loves the excitement of traveling to new places. She'll ask, ''Do we get to park by the animals this time?'' or ''Am I going to get to park by my friend?''
And while she may be missing out on typical kid experiences like playing Little League ball, she takes private ballet lessons from a Brazilian dancer and has traveled to 46 states. She also gets to spend more time with her parents than many children; the family is typically together for all but the three hours when Mom and Dad are performing and Skyler goes to a nursery.
Those are just the trade-offs that come with circus life, Miser said.
And she's willing to keep making them. She said she plans to continue the act ''as long as it's still fun for me.''
''Even after 2,000 shots,'' she said, ''it still gets my blood pumping.''
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com.
Details
• Event: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Zing Zang Zoom.
• When: 7:30 nightly through Monday; 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
• Where: Quicken Loans Arena, Ontario Street and Huron Road East, Cleveland.
• Tickets: $15-$82.50.
• Information: http://www.ringling.com, http://www.ticketmaster.com or 216-241-2121.
Lots of kids dream of running away and joining the circus.
Tina Miser did it.
Miser is half of the human cannonball duo with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the celebrated circus that is performing its Zing Zang Zoom spectacular through Monday at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena.
For her, it's the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
Miser, 34, grew up in Peru, Ind., a town that in the 1920s quartered circuses during the winters and later honored that heritage by creating an amateur summer circus for kids. She performed with that circus as a child ''and just got bit by the circus bug,'' she said by phone from Denver, where Ringling was performing earlier this month.
She wanted to become a trapeze artist right out of high school, but her parents insisted on college. So she got her degree from Ball State University, served in the Air Force Reserve and in 1999 returned home and volunteered at the summer circus.
That's where she got reacquainted with Brian Miser, a locally famous performer who'd been in the amateur circus with her and joined Ringling Bros. out of high school.
At the time he was preparing to move from the trapeze to the cannon. ''That was his pickup line,'' Tina Miser recalled with a laugh. '' 'Hey, I'm building a cannon. Would you like to shoot me out of it?' ''
Apparently the line worked. She joined Ringling as the cannon operator, propelling the man who would eventually become her husband out of the device in flames.
Night after night she witnessed the act. ''Man, that looks like fun,'' she remembers thinking. ''I want to try it.''
At first Brian was reluctant to let her because of the danger, she said. When he finally relented, she started small, shooting maybe 30 feet on her first attempt. Her early gymnastics and circus training had given her the acrobatic skills and body awareness she needed for the act, and she built on those, she said.
Then she broke her arm in a training accident. ''So that kind of put me off of the cannon for a while,'' she said.
Still, she persisted. In 2005 she became part of a double-cannonball act with her husband.
Now the tables are turned. Brian Miser is the one shooting his wife out of a cannon along with Ekaterina Borzikova, an aerialist who recently made the transition to human cannonball. The two fly side by side about 65 feet, landing on parallel air bags. (How the cannon works is a trade secret.)
A flight lasts about two seconds, but Miser said her concentration makes it seem longer. ''I really do feel like I'm flying,'' she said.
Always, the emphasis is on safety. Miser said her husband keeps a close eye on the cannon's operation and watches every flight for even the slightest variation or form break that needs correction. A record is kept of every performance, so factors that might affect an upcoming flight can be taken into account.
Nevertheless, ''there's still a margin of error that you can't account for,'' she said. Even though she's made more than 2,000 flights, she said she still has to work up the nerve every time she climbs into the cannon.
But when the lights come up and the audience's excitement builds, she said, ''it's exhilarating.''
That's just the way she imagined it would be back when she was dreaming of a life in the circus, she said. What she didn't expect were the realities of life on the road.
The Misers live in a motor home and spend 48 weeks a year traveling. They're always having to adapt to new surroundings, she said, right down to finding the post office or locating a source of propane. They don't see her parents as often as she'd like or get to participate in the life of a town.
Their almost-6-year-old daughter, Skyler (the name means ''projectile''), doesn't seem to mind, though. This life is all she's known, Miser said.
She said Skyler, who is home-schooled, loves the excitement of traveling to new places. She'll ask, ''Do we get to park by the animals this time?'' or ''Am I going to get to park by my friend?''
And while she may be missing out on typical kid experiences like playing Little League ball, she takes private ballet lessons from a Brazilian dancer and has traveled to 46 states. She also gets to spend more time with her parents than many children; the family is typically together for all but the three hours when Mom and Dad are performing and Skyler goes to a nursery.
Those are just the trade-offs that come with circus life, Miser said.
And she's willing to keep making them. She said she plans to continue the act ''as long as it's still fun for me.''
''Even after 2,000 shots,'' she said, ''it still gets my blood pumping.''
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com.
Details
• Event: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Zing Zang Zoom.
• When: 7:30 nightly through Monday; 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
• Where: Quicken Loans Arena, Ontario Street and Huron Road East, Cleveland.
• Tickets: $15-$82.50.
• Information: http://www.ringling.com, http://www.ticketmaster.com or 216-241-2121.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
