Flying high at the Alaska State Fair

PALMER — The first thing the members of City Cirque do during their thrice daily performance is disappear.

Dressed in matching shirts bearing the iconic skull of Marvel’s Punisher, the men slip out of the backstage area of their Purple Plaza performance area on the Alaska State Fairgrounds, head up the Purple Trail, then turn around and march back, bucket drumming the whole way, pied-pipering a crowd that will watch what happens next.

City Cirque bills itself as a “high-energy skateboard, BMX & acro act.” With so many words in the description they had to abbreviate “acrobatic” it’s probably not surprising that they left things out, like the bucket drumming — which eventually expands to include crowd members pounding on pots and pans and singing the titular lines to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” — but also things like martial arts demonstrations, juggling and scooter tricks.

Ruben Martin, who served as the show’s emcee but also did bicycle tricks and juggling, said that the troupe came together at the behest of a Florida entertainment company, Bill Brown Entertainment, which drew them in from all over the country and sent them to the Alaska State Fair to perform.

“Each one of us does his own stuff,” he said.

Martin said that his life in circus performing started out as a hobby. Then he started putting on exhibitions. Then he started getting paid for it.

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years,” he said. “I’ve never had another job.”

Patrick Reynoso, who holds down the “BMX” part of the show’s description, said that everyone in the show is just doing what he loves to do.

“We’re just here to put smiles on the kids’ faces,” he said. And, he hopes, maybe that will be an inspiration to some of those youngsters:

If you do something you love well enough, “you could make something out of it.”

Years of practice, he said, does come with some injuries from failed tricks but, in his experience, the good times far outweigh the bad.

After the bucket drumming and the audience participation, the show moves into the high-energy portion. Kidani Tilaye and Matthew McConarty perform on a couple of poles, seemingly defying gravity, jumping between the two while 20 feet in the air.

Four ramps, a basketball hoop, a trampoline and a couple of mats to land in are put to good use as a rollerblader, a bicyclist, a scooter-rider and a skateboarder whip back and forth, performing high-flying tricks at one end of the space and then the other.

Tilaye performs some martial arts moves and then the skateboarder, Denzel White, pretends to knock him out with a frying pan. Now Tilaye is an obstacle for the various wheeled daredevils to jump over.

This is City Cirque’s second year at the fair, Martin said. He was here last year as well and enjoyed it.