In Black America; The UniverSoul Circus with Cedric Walker

No way. From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. We kind of blocked out what we didn't have or what we couldn't do, we didn't think of what we couldn't do, we didn't think of how we could do it, we didn't think of any negatives, we just moved forward and realized that on that date that we advertised that that show had to go on. There were times when we put an advertisement on the air and we lined up our talent and we lined up everything and had no idea how we were going to pay for it, but we did it.

And that was the way we moved, that was the spirit in which we moved. And I don't know how to explain the logistics, I think that all things came together to make it work because we certainly had no experience in circus. Cedric Walker, founder and president, Universal Circus. The Universal Circus is built as the most soulful show on earth. It's multicultural, a one-ring spectacle featuring veteran black circus performers and people of color from around the world. The circus has an urban theme, state-of-the-art lighting and high-energy music. Since 1994, the Atlanta Burst Circus is the only African-American-owned and operated traveling big-top-style circus and the first and more than a century. The show consists of traditional circus acts, but according to Walker, his circus is unique in that they wanted to express the culture of a people.

I'm John L. Hansen, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. A Miss Weeks program, The Universal Soul Circus, with founder Cedric Walker, in Black America. Are you ready? That's it. Let's meet in San Diego. That's when the research that ideas came from Ephraim Williams and the Black Circus, well, after the idea and after the research and after the context, being him traveled to Sarasota, Florida, which was the home of Ringland Brothers, and we said, let's just go down there, sit in a hotel for two or three days and brainstorm on how we're going to move forward. And at that point, we charted on our walls. We just made a war room and we wrote down every idea that we had. And my ideas for names were like the Underground Railroad Circus.

And Cal said, no, man, we should call it the Universal Circus. And he named the Fresh Festival. He named everything that we've done together. He's been assigned to creating the name and that sort. But when he said it, it just clicked. The Universal Soul Circus has attracted thousands of enthusiastic viewers to his big top in recent years. And well, over one million people saw the Circus last year. The idea for the hip hop under the big top came after Walker noticed people bringing their kids to the musical plays he once produced. With co-founder, Casual Cal Dupri and others, he researched live family attractions for modern black audience. They discussed vaudeville, variety shows, hip hop musicals, and animal acts. Later, Casual Cal said, it sounds like a circus to me. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland in the inner city, after high school graduation, Walker attended Tuskegee University, but left after one year to become road manager to his classmates, the Commodores.

From there, he went on to produce rap music shows and gospel plays, recently in Black America, caught up with Walker in the Virgin Islands. I got a little bit tired of the rap and the rock and roll lifestyle at a certain point. And he decided I actually wanted to change my life and myself as a person, just the whole scene. So I got one of my knees impressed. I understand. That I would, you know, if this was what it was for me, I really didn't want it, but I love the show business. And the Lord presented me shortly afterwards with an opportunity to get into gospel musicals or gospel theater. And I met a great bunch of guys, Mike Matthews and his bunch who, to me, were some of the pioneers and some of the guys from Beauty Shop.

But I got into it. I just fell right into it and loved the gospel musical for what it meant, for what it told America for Black America, for the reflection of what we live every day and what we face. In the inner city, some of the problems, but we Michael is able to present the story in a very entertaining manner that really reflected what we went through, but showed us a positive way to respond. Some of the crack, some of the crack problems that the inner city faces, some of the things that that mothers face and raising kids in the inner city. Some of the things that were single women face and relationships and just the family in general. And looking at the response to, from the audience, I noticed that the kids, people were bringing their kids and the women were bringing their husbands, because in the beginning it was mostly women that attended the gospel theater.

And then the audience widened to men and then it all widened to the whole family, because these shows have family messages and they weren't vulgar, they didn't have profanity, but they still entertained. And I saw the way Black America responded and that gave me the idea for family attractions that the Black Family Unit was ready to go somewhere together as a unit to see good, clean fun. To have fun together and it be clean fun and that led to the circus. The first Black Circus was in the late 1880s, around 1885. How did you go? 1893 or four to be exact. Okay, how did you go about researching the William Circus?

Well, in my efforts to study Black, in my efforts to create a Black Family event, the circus was not the first idea. That was the idea that Cal came with later, but the original idea was to create a show that was clean and reflective Black talent in different ways than just singing and dancing. So we thought we would combine singing, dancing, comedy, just every kind of thing that we could think of that was an art form, a serious art form that Black people did in the way of life and attainment. So that led us to researching Vaudeville, to researching Black shows all the way back into the century. So I went to Liberia's and I read about all types of Black entertainment. And I ran across our form Williams in a show. He had created it in the 1900s and the beginning of the 1900s called Salis Green from New Orleans. Well, he managed and ran and it was a show that was done under a tent that featured Black performers from all over the world.

Pretty girls from Venezuela and Virgin Islands and he had animal acts on the show. So I was explaining the show to Cal and he had comedy and he had everything and it was a real sellout show that tore America for 20 years and mainly in the South. And I was explaining to Cal and he suggested that well, if you're going to put animals and all this stuff together, that's the exact words. If I may, let's just do a damn circus, Richie. And I hit the ceiling and then I researched more and after Williams and uncovered the fact that he had in fact created the first Black circus in 1893. And he had just he had Black performers and White performers. But he was a Black owner and it grew to I think something like 80 something railroad cost. And he was held as the Black Barnum.

Having the idea is one thing, making it a reality is something else. How did you and Cal put it all together? How did you go out and find the circus performers that were of the caliber in which you wanted to present to the public? Well, through our research, we found I found a historian in Philadelphia and I hope I can think of his name before the interview is over. He was very good to us. And I'm a shame that I can't call his name, but I was in New York working with gospel theater and went to a lack fair type event that WBLF created and put on in that they had exhibitors. Another exhibitors was a gentleman in Philadelphia that had and I can call you back with that name, but he had a he had Black circus history.

And he had an exhibit and it was incredible and it was just I think the law of working because I walk past the booth and I at the same time I was the idea and the research was growing for the circus. I had no idea that I would walk past this booth. And when I walk past, I just stopped in my tracks and I ran into booth and I said, can I get a camera and take a picture of your booth and can I come after you finish this exhibit? May I come to Philadelphia and speak with you about creating a Black circus. And he had all the facts. He had every history. He had every example of every Black participant in the circus dating back to FM Williams and dating back to the origin of circus, which was from London, from England. And it was Black Europeans, Black Africans. He had the whole history. And I was up to today. So he gave me a list of all the Black performers that was still alive.

And I started going down the left calling and I reached probably about one third of them and they were able to direct me to younger performers and that were trying and I connected. And when I connected, the performers were so enthusiastic about an opportunity to perform for their own or together together as a unit and do a presentation. How did you all come up with the name? Actually, that is my partner, Cal and he could answer that better. He was sitting in, because I had some names that were terrible. What we did was we went to, after we conceived the idea and the way we conceived the idea was the background of the conception was we went to, we met every quarter for a year and discussed these ideas. And the start off was four and it ended up with just me and Cal. And we went to a hotel in San Diego. We were both traveling on the road with shows, but we were meet. So I said, well, let's meet in San Diego.

And that's when the research that ideas came from Ephraim Williams and the Black Circus, well, after the idea and after the research and after the context, being him traveled to Sarasota, Florida, which was the home of Ringland brothers. And we said, let's just go down there, sit in a hotel for two or three days and brainstorm on how we're going to move forward. And at that point, we charted on our walls. We just made a war room and we wrote down every idea that we had. And my ideas for names were like the Underground Railroad Circus. And Cal said, no, we should call it the universal, universal circuit. And we, and it just click. And he named the fresh festival. He named everything that we've done together. He's been assigned to creating the name and that that sort. But when he said it, it just clicked. How did you all go about creating a different atmosphere, one that has a tenant to circus and those that haven't are doing themselves with this service, but you know you have to circus. You know you're going to see some of the same performers or acts that that you would at at a majority circus.

But there's a different field is I guess the definitions that soulful atmosphere once you get in and everywhere gets caught up into in casual Cal does a tremendous job and actually having the audience participate. Because there are loves when you have to change different things in the center ring, but it doesn't feel like there's a drop off in the performance. I hear again, I have to to pass that talent on to my partner, Casual Cal who brings the show alive. It is his spirit and soul that creates the, I created a, we created a template from our our meeting in Florida. And his from that template, he sat down with directors and producers and came up with the flow of the show. And in other words, I would say, well, we got to do something from the silver screen because that was a part of black history.

And then Cal will come up with all right, let's use. Let's make our clowns do something from Sanford and Sonor. Let's do something from good times. He would pick what part of the silver screen. I'd say, well, we got to have an element of black cowboys. Well, he go and put that element together. And so I would come up with just an outline of skeleton and I look for the talent and find that. And then I once I come up with the outline, it's just merely paper and pencil writing. Cal brings it to life. And he he has a magic about his personality that is connected with the personalities of people, period. And it's a it's a God given talent that he infuses into this show. And he's done a great job. The 1992 24 cities, 468 shows, 10,500 miles covered, 4 million in attendance, the logistics of moving this circus around the country.

Well, it's very, it's very, it's a very challenging process that I hear again. We don't look at any opposition. We don't look at the roadblocks. We just move forward. And it's it's it's a very expensive process that we only first started doing it while when we first did the show. Well, it was for if I looked at what the cost was, I probably wouldn't have done it. Or if I had had any any, you know, we kind of blocked out what we didn't have or what we couldn't do. We didn't think of what we couldn't do. We didn't think of how we could do it. We didn't think of any negatives. We just move forward and realize that on that date that we advertise that that show had to go on.

There were times when we put an advertisement on the air and we lined up our talent and we lined up everything and had no idea how we were going to pay for it, but we did it. And that was the way we moved. That was the spirit in which we moved. And I don't know how to explain the logistics. We I think that all things came together to make it work because we certainly had no experience in circus and no experience in moving. Well, I move shows for all my life. I move pretty big shows I work with. So I had that ability in working with the common was we work with the Jackson's. I work with some the OJs. I work with some pretty big shows with the rap movement. So I had the ability and the knowledge and the reputation that allowed a lot of the people to come. A lot of the people just brought their equipment and the sound, the lighting, all the high good technology. They just said, well, Cedric has a good reputation and most of the shows that he's work with have been top not.

So we don't need any deposits will be there. Okay. So I had the reputation and the history of my career and cows seem to work in our benefit. 45 performers currently a part of the circus and you are updated some of the acts for the 1999 tour. How do you all go about in reassessing new talent or new inclusion until the Universal Soul Circus? Well, actually, that's a good question that you caught me right now in St. Thomas Virgin Islands where I'm bringing together a new group of the Moko Jumbe still walkers and that. So I travel I just left South Africa where I visited three or four cities and we're putting together a new flying act new flying trapeze act in South Africa.

Basically, we go in every direction we can go and define black performers is very, very difficult. They're very, very rare and they're in all corners of the world. And you you you can find them by traveling to see you can find them. I'm you can find them on by dealing with agents that will send you information and the individual acts have heard about the show because it was a shot around the world. The fact that there's a black circus when I go to Africa, the people know and they respect and they just go get very excited upon meeting me or any representative from our circus. When I go to Europe, when we go to London, anywhere we go that are big areas where there's a lot of communication, they know. So the words spread around so we get videos, we get tapes, we get barrage with that.

And we also go and look, we travel around the world and find and then we get references. Sometimes the acts on the show know other acts and they bring it to our attention. But we we we we want and we look for physical acts of daring and we focus on that type of presentation that is very physical. We don't look for a lot of mechanical circus. Okay. But we look for the real life look in front of your face, challenging performance. What does it mean to you and I and I would assume the circus, your circus family having the hip hop under the big top right in the hood accessible to the brothers and sisters or anyone else who want to attend. Well, I think that is something that is very important for all of us who have the ability to present something from us to us.

I think that to carry it to bring it to the inner city where most of us or the majority of of of our people reside is bringing it to them. And I think whenever you present someone with a gift is very important or with a not not so much a gift. I don't mean to sound like that. But whenever you present anything to anyone to bring it to them is very important. And I think our inner cities need more positive images internally and inside the city. We need especially a family event. I just I don't know how to explain it, but I think it's very important that we do that. I think that as many qualities, events are from an entertainment perspective that we can put right in our neighborhoods because I mean the fears and the reputation that we have is very unfounded, very untrue or that our inner cities have. I've been into places that the people have said, oh, don't do that. Don't go there. It's dangerous. And we haven't had one incident. We haven't had one problem. Not one problem.

Not an alcoholic harassing people. Not just not one problem. It's been in the five years that we've been touring and we've played most of the inner cities across America. So it's found that the danger exists in our inner cities. Yes, there's danger in our inner cities, but not to our people are very intelligent people and they're very religious and spiritually based people. And when you're coming to them with something for their benefit, there's a big respect that works. And I think that's one of the explanations that I have for feeling very comfortable. But I think it also shows a sense of growth. And we're presenting, we're coming there to say that we're growing and we're positive. And this is what we are. So I hope I explain that well.

What has the corporate national corporate sponsorship done for the infrastructure of the circus and also its stability? Without Ford and General Mills and Burger King, I think they've taken some major steps in supporting our show, especially but here's a circus that, first of all, even my investors, even because I went a long time in this industry and had black and Jewish investors. And both sides were like, Ricky, you're nuts, black people won't go to the circus. And so it was an unbelievable idea. And for these sponsors, I mean, even my own investors backed out on me after the first show, whatever color they were, they all ran. And we lost so much money, but for the sponsors to believe and support this idea is one of those things that is also on, well, you have to give them a lot of credit to take the courage to go with an African American company with a new idea that's unproven and to support it the way we they have with enthusiasm.

That I have to note that General Mills and Ford have exhibited and I think they've made coloring General Mills has done coloring books and put them in all kinds of grocery stores, making us a part of their programming, not only just giving us a few dollars for advertising, but really believing in this project. That has done national programs. That is the great achievement for them to believe in us and that has enabled us to present a better product and enabled us to travel and grow and has been the backbone of the circus. Two more questions, Mr. Walker. I know you have to run off to another meeting the HBO special that kicked off this earlier part of this year for their one of their family channels. How was that experience?

Well, I got to tell you that the people, the surrounding people, is four of us basically that are created to show or that run and manage and operate the show. And out of the four, I was totally against the HBO special for years that if we created it and they did not film it right or it didn't come all across right, I said, we can't compete with the dead. I was on TV and the men people see so much action. You know, to go to the circus is the whole ambiance and atmosphere. I mean, okay, we got a flying guy who catches with his feet, but man, these guys are jumping off a cliff on TV and spill a lot of, you know, so for those reasons, I voted against the, but luckily I was out voted. Cedric Walker, founder and president universal soul circus. If you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in black America programs, write us. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over.

The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Alvarez. I'm John L Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today and please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America cassettes, communication building B, U.T. Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L Hansen, Jr. Join us this week on in black America.

It was a very good experience. It was, it was a shot in the arm for the circus and it has carried us and propelled us to higher levels. Universal Soul Circus with Cedric Walker this week on in black America.