Highlights:
· The double barreled cannon, built by Brian Miser, shoot the two women about 65 feet across the arena, where they land on parallel airbags.
· Tina Miser served in the Air Force Reserves. This is Tina’s fourth tour with Ringling Bros. and her third tour being a human cannonball.
· Born in Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg, in the former Soviet Union, Ekaterina trained as a gymnast since she was four years old.
Tina Miser and Ekaterina Borzikova
Duo human cannonballs
Experienced human cannonball Tina Miser says there’s nothing like getting shot out of a cannon. First you feel the wind, then the exhilaration and then, if everything works right, the air bag.
Ekaterina Borzikova is new to cannonball work, but this circus aerialist, who grew up a gymnast in the former Soviet Union, likes to try new things.
“The first big thing is just to get in there. Second is to get in the right position to come out. And third is to land myself right,” she says. “You don’t think about what could happen. You just think about what you have to do.”
Tina and Ekaterina will perform their human cannonball act – the first female duo – in the all-new edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey®. Together they shoot out of a double-barreled cannon created and built by Tina’s husband, Brian, an original cannonball stuntman.
Brian has been shot from a cannon more than 2,000 times. Now he’s the triggerman, still keeping his magic combustion a trade secret.
The double barreled cannon shoots the two women about 65 feet across the arena, where they land on parallel airbags. “It takes your breath away,” Ekaterina says.
Tina says being a cannonball is the best job in the circus. But she’d hoped to become an aerialist after graduating from high school in Peru, Indiana, which calls itself the “Circus Capital of the World” because circus troupes wintered there in the early 20th century. In honor of its heritage, Peru stages a renowned amateur circus every summer, put together by some 1,000 local volunteers and aspiring young performers.
Tina’s parents insisted she first graduate from college. So after receiving her degree from Ball State University and serving in the Air Force Reserves, she returned to Peru in 1999, volunteered at the summer circus and got reacquainted with Brian, who’s also from Peru.
Brian was preparing to move from the trapeze to the cannon and made Tina an offer she couldn’t refuse: Come shoot me out of the cannon. “You don’t get that kind of offer too often,” she notes. And so Tina joined the circus, and the man who would become her husband.
Brian starred as “Bailey’s Comet” in the 133rd Edition of Ringling Bros.®, flying from the cannon in flames – the only person to ever perform such a stunt. It was during this 2003 show that the couple welcomed their daughter Skyler, whose name means “projectile.”
Still, Tina wanted to be a cannonball. She bugged Brian, who feared she’d get hurt. But Tina doesn’t give up easily. And so, in the 135th Edition of Ringling Bros., the husband and wife performed a double-cannon act. And in the 137th Edition, they added a dramatic 42-foot fall for an entrance.
“It’s the best job,” says Tina. But she hopes Skyler, who was born with a performer’s personality, doesn’t follow in her footsteps. “I would worry about her.”
Ekaterina understands the danger. Her goal as a cannonball “is to live through two years, then we’ll see.”
The most important thing is knowing how to land, she says.
Ekaterina landed in the United States in 1997, at age 17. Born in Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg, in the former Soviet Union, she trained as a gymnast from ages 4 to 13. “I wanted to be a gold medalist.”
Instead she became a star aerialist and performed with a troupe of eight chosen to join The Greatest Show On Earth! Incredibly, ZING ZANG ZOOM is her seventh tour.
She loves performing. “It’s like a drug. You feed off the audience. You want to make it better for them.”
When the Misers asked her to join their act, Ekaterina took a look and liked it. “I would like to do a lot of different things with the circus, until someone says you’re too old.” But she’s not sure she’d want her son Daniel, now only 4, to one day join the human-cannonball tradition.
People who’ve been shot from cannons seem to waive it off for those they love. “It’s as dangerous as it looks,” Tina explains.