Tri-Cities residents who like feats of dexterity and strength, expert juggling, zany clowns and amazing acrobatics are set to be amazed under the big top next week.
Circus Osorio is coming to Coquitlam for a five-day visit, and will host 11 shows over that span in the parking lot of the Coquitlam Centre Mall (2929 Barnet Hwy.).
A more than 100-year-old tradition for the Osorio famlly, the show features humour, glamourous costumes and high-flying acts.
From the early 1800s, when Osorio’s great-grandfather first ran away to the circus, the Osorios were a family of hand acrobats, bodies flipping over bodies to start with, and eventually moving on to uneven bars — a prelude to the trapeze — by the 1920s.
In 1927, Osorio’s grandfather got in a fight with the circus owner, left the troupe and started his own circus. Circo Osorio was born in a small school somewhere in the state of Michoacán. As family lore has it, those early decades consisted of loops around the central Mexico. From the Tierra Caliente Valley in the west to Mexico City, the family would plod from town to city, hauling their circus act in horse-drawn carriages.
In the nearly 75 years since, Circo Osorio has transformed from a fringe Mexican circus act into an international spectacle performing across North America.
When the circus visited Coquitlam in 2019, the Tri-City News interviewed one of the Osorios, who described the event as a big party.
"It’s a little bit of the traditional circus, the popcorn, the cotton candy, all that good stuff, [and then] we bring our Hispanic roots into it. It’s a concert," said Robert Osorio.
"[In Mexico] the difference between fighting and a party is not very much… You get in there and it’s a party."
The Coquitlam stop will be the last on the B.C. leg of the tour, according to the website.
For more information and to purchase tickets, you can visit Circus Osorio's website.
- with files from Stefan Labbé, Glacier Media
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