Courtesy of Mike Naughton
Courtesy of Bjorn Krebbers
'You sure have to give the Casselly's credit for working hard to "change it up/make something different" to present to the public. The vast majority of acts you look at today will be the exact same 15 years later, and we wonder why the public has grown weary of animal acts?? The "foot care" demonstration was very strange and very out of place and inappropriate. I wonder if it was Rene's idea or some nitwit publicist from Monte Carlo wanting a "don't we love our animals" segment in the show. I don't understand why we feel we have to alibi before we even start.'
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Casselly Family Elephants
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
11 comments:
The "foot care" demonstration is indeed very strange. But I think this was part of the Open Circus Show that they organized this year. And that it is not in the normal act.
Thomas
Thomas,
Isn't the open air show usually outside, and pretty informal. This looked like it was the show. Maybe they don't do the outside show any more?
Wade
Starting 07:45 it is an explanation (in french) about elephants, behaviour, training, care, manucure, etc ... NOT a part of the act.
It was a morning "training show" open to everybody for free (w/o music and light, just costumes)absolutely NOT a regular show, just a special event
That is what i meant not the open air show. But the open door show they did this year.
These people and their elephants are just sensational. Whoever in this family, trainers of animals and people, are just amazing.We here in USA are familiar with Knie, Krone, Togni, Gruss but only here of Casselly at Monte Carlo. Where do they perform? Do they have their own circus? What is their nationality or home base? I would appreciate someone filling me in. They have brought a higher level to the circus art to be sure. Their training of African elephants is fabulous. I believe nthey are also good with horses, exotics etc. The "high school" elephant is wonderful. As of late seeing the Richtor family and now the Casselly family are really a treat. and as an old timer having seen so much I must take back my quote that, "its all been done before" What a treat. Will be waiting for a reply. Thanks. John Herriott
First time I ever saw an elephant act training in costume, foot care, monte Carlo muppets, Rene deserves the Gold Clown, just for his work ethics best African elephant act in Europe!
John,
Nice comment, and I am sure the Casselly's will appreciate it coming from you. I knew you would like what they do eventually, but you were sure hard to convince 3 years ago when I first introduced them to readers of circusnospin:
The Circus "NO SPIN ZONE": John Herriott, do you have your atlas. We have been through this before, but we will go slower this time.
The Circus "NO SPIN ZONE": Ms. Casselly appreciates your concern, John Herriott
Heres a classic comment on Buckles Blog in regards to the Casselly's Africans:
tanglefoot said...
WE see that the Africans are note graduated in size in the line up. Obviously typical Africans in some sort of ideosycrasie. Can't spell it but it means Idiots.
01 October, 2009 09:55
"I can't spell it but it means idiots!!!!" That is funnier then hell, Col. :)
Here is a comment Raffaele De Ritis and Vincent Manero left on Buckles Blog, in case you missed it:
johnny said...
Who are these Cassellys? Do they have their own circus? What country are they from? I never heard of them before this year. Are they the trainers or did they buy or have ntheir animals trained? Is this all one act.?
30 January, 2008 10:16
Raffaele De Ritis said...
Casselly is a German family. They have two small circuses but sometimes working in other shows. It is a very nice family. They train themselves the animals.
30 January, 2008 15:43
Johnny,
René Casselly (Kaselowsky)is German and his wife, Alexia is from Belgium. They have 2 children René Jr and Merry-Lu. They don't have their own show but own, train and present these Elephants and Horses. In MC they did 3 differents acts: liberty Horses, liberty Horses + Elephants and the Post (Alexia is standing on the Elephants back and the Horses run between the Elephants).They toured for several years with the Circus Arena in Denmark and will also work there in 2008. Benny Berdino, the owner of Arena received 3 Africans (Sarah, Junglar and Jenny) from the Circus Deros in Spain (Rossi Family) in 2007. He has build luxury surroundings for them at the Circus Arena Winter quarters.
Vincent Manero
30 January, 2008 16:09
Alexia(Mrs. Casselly) is also Guy Gossing's niece. I have heard her father also did a tiger act. Does anyone know who her father was?
Wade
I believe that this tanglefoot is a phony. The real tenglefoot never spells correctly. Look at these and recent posts on Buckles Blog. They are not written by the same person.
Anonymous,
You are wrong. They are one and the same(expect you said "tenglefoot. Now I have to wonder?) If you ever had a few pleasant moment's conversing with my friend, the grand John Milton Herriott you would recognize his "voice," forget spelling. Roy and Cindy are just keeping a little closer eye on him and he has calmed down a bit. :) No disrespect, I love the Col. but that's the skinny on that.
Wade
Hello Col.,
I believe Wade reposted some of the answers to your questions, but I'll add in some things I know. They have done pas-de-deux bareback on horses and elephants. They have trained high school acts and mixed liberty acts with the African elephants and the gray Andalusians. For several years they have been performing with Circus Arena in Denmark, owned by the Berdino Family. Merry-Lu and Rene Jr. are very talented acrobats and performers. Merry-lu presented a liberty act a few years ago on that show. I believe the Arab horses were trained by Tim Delbosq-not her family's Andalusians. While both children are on Facebook, their parents, Rene Sr. and Alexia are not. There should be several videos of them on YouTube, in addition to the ones posted on here. This is not their first time performing in Monte Carlo. I hope this information was useful.
-Chris, NY
I was in Monte Carlo and this act deserved two gold clowns! It was absolutely first class. Alexis's father my first group of lionesses from me in 1982. This was the first act I trained. We had it on hire to a Dutch circus along with a pony act and a parrot act. The show closed halfway through the season and instead of bringing them home I sold them to the Milos family (Gossings). I didn't know they were related to Guy Gossing and never made the connection. At that time they did an excellent cowboy act and the two daughters, Alexis and Francesca, did a riding act. The main trick being Alexis standing on the head of Francesca while the horse cantered. They also did a rolling globe act, which was equally as good. They did one season in the UK with Circus Fiesta and then we worked together again in London in Battersea Park. They had the baby elephants and a liberty act. Emile was there presenting my 16 leopards, panthers and jaguars.
Post a Comment