Wanderlust Circus

Wanderlust Circus
Wanderlust Circus logo.
Origin
Country	United States
Founder(s)	Noah Mickens Nick Harbar
Year founded	2006
Information
Traveling show?	Yes
Circus tent?	No
Type of acts	Acrobalance, Aerial dance, Belly dancing, Burlesque, Contortionist, Cowboy clown, Freestyle BMX
Website	http://www.wanderlustcircus.com

Wanderlust Circus is a theatrical circus troupe based in Portland, Oregon, founded in 2006 by creative partners Noah Mickens and Nick "The Creature" Harbar. Since 2006, Wanderlust Circus has grown from a small band of creatives to a full-fledged circus troupe, and non-profit organization. The organization presently comprises a team of acrobats, a 10-piece swing band, a trick-roping cowboy clown; and several aerialists, contortionists, hand balancers, jugglers, and dancers. Their most popular recurring shows have been The White Album Christmas, A Circus Carol, and the dance party series MegaBounce.

Victorian English ringmaster William Batty and his spirit cousins, the members of the Wanderlust Circus, are blessed and cursed with conditional immortality: should they ever leave the circus life, their long years will catch up with them leaving them old or even dead. Batty and the Wanderlust Circus all come from different time periods - Victorian England, the Old West, swing-era New York and even the present day. Batty himself is over two hundred years old. Shows follow the troupe's adventures on the road with simple comic stories providing the through line between acts.

Mickens and Creature first teamed up in 2006 to form two separate but related circus shows: Wanderlust Circus headed by Creature, and Batty's Hippodrome, led by Mickens and founded during his residency as Creative Director of the now-defunct Someday Lounge. This would not be either artists' first foray into the world of circus arts. Mickens had already worked on three distinctly unique circuses (Cicuri Curajul, Societas Insomnia, and 999 Eyes of Endless Dream); while Creature was director, producer, and ringmaster of San Francisco's Circo Romani before his move to Portland.

The pair founded the Hippodrome Circus Arts Center, which opened on November 17, 2007 on the lower floor of the Rotture-Branx venue complex (which itself closed in 2015). Mickens and Creature fused circuses in 2008, under the Wanderlust name, after The Hippodrome's owner decided not to continue the venue.

Wanderlust Circus eventually settled into the Bossanova Ballroom, and proceeded to put on a series of shows that lasted through 2010. Some of these shows were seasonally recurring, such as the White Album Christmas show (in collaboration with The Nowhere Band, aka the No Star All Star Band, featuring members of the MarchFourth Marching Band, Solovox, Stereovision, and others), the Cirque L’Amour show for Valentine’s Day, and Wonderland Circus, a circus adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland with dialogue from the original story. Other shows told the legendary backstory of the Wanderlust Circus itself.