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The Circus Diaries is a wonderful oral history and photographic project documenting traditional Australian circus life from the 1920's to the present. Over the past three years I have travelled through much of Australia interviewing and photographing circus elders and families, and living with traditional circuses.

The Circus Diaries is a PhD project in partnership with The Australian Centre of Melbourne University and the Performing Arts Collection of the Arts Centre, Victoria.The Circus Diaries exhibition opened at the George Adams Gallery of the Arts Centre, 100 St. Kilda Rd, Melbourne, on May 18th, and ran till July 15th, 2007. The exhibition was an outcome from my Australian Circus Oral History PhD research and features photographs by Cal MacKinnon. To see some of Cal's contemporary images from The Circus Diaries exhibition, please click on the link to her website on the right.

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Monday, July 25, 2005

Stardust Circus big top

This was my first glimpse of Stardust Circus at Mitchell, in central Queensland. It was pretty damn exciting to see the big top rising up out of the bindies (prickles) of the local showground. I was very nervous, but was quickly made to feel at home by Jan and Lindsay Lennon, the proprietors. In fact Jan was cooking choko and cauliflower soup, and insisted on feeding me straight up. I thought 'this is going to be ok'. Then one of her daughters, Wonona turned up at the caravan door with her 'baby' Millie - a young Rhesus monkey, and I knew I had really arrived at the circus.

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