Big Apple Circus

On July 18, 1977, Paul Binder and Michael Christensen founded the Big Apple Circus with its first performance in Battery Park City. They had recently returned from a street performing tour of Europe where they had been invited to participate in Annie Fratellini’s first production of her Nouveau Cirque in Dijon in the summer of 1975. German-based Circus-Theater Roncalli was founded in 1976 by Bernhard Paul and Andre Heller and comes from the same one-ring, traditional Nouveau Cirque style. Since 1981, Lincoln Center has been home to the Big Apple Circus. Here, in 1988, the Big Apple Circus first introduced New Yorkers to China’s modern circus tradition with The Big Apple Circus Meets the Monkey King, and, in 1994, welcomed the famous Swiss mime group in Grandma Meets Mummenschanz. This year, we welcome Circus-Theater Roncalli for its U.S. premier and a collaboration on an all new show, Journey to the Rainbow. Join us under the Big Top through January 15th, 2024!