South Korea's last circus, Dongchoon, holds up as it marks centennial

ANSAN, South Korea (AP) — No more elephant and monkey acts. No more death-defying motorbike stunts. No more singing or acting on stage.

Several hundred spectators still clapped constantly when acrobats with Dongchoon Circus Troupe, South Korea’s last and 100-year-old circus, twirled on a long suspended fabric, juggled clubs on a large, rotating wheel and rode a unicycle on a tightrope under the big top.

“As I recall the hardship that I’ve gone through, I think I’ve done something significant,” Park Sae-hwan, the head of the circus, said in a recent Associated Press interview. “But I also feel heavy responsibility because if Dongchoon stops, our country’s circus, one genre in our performing arts, will disappear. That’s the problem.”

Founded in 1925, Dongchoon is Korea's oldest circus. In the golden ages of South Korean circuses in the 1960s when most households still had no TVs, Dongchoon travelled across the country, wowing audiences with then exotic animals like an elephant and a giraffe and a variety of shows including skits, comic talks, singing, dancing and magic shows. At its peak years, it had more than 200 artists, acrobats and other staff, according to Park.

Like in many other countries, TVs and movies later syphoned off the audiences of Dongchoon and other circuses in South Korea. Their actors, singers and comedians moved to TV stations, and some became bigger stars. The advent of the internet, video games and professional sports were another blow. South Korean circuses also dropped animal shows that faced protests by animal rights campaigners.

Now, Dongchoon is the only circus in South Korea after all its rivals went out of business.

Park, who joined Dongchoon in 1963, served as a show host and sometimes sang and acted in the circus's drama programs. He left the circus in 1973 and ran a lucrative supermarket business. In 1978, he returned to the circus industry by taking over Dongchoon, which was put up for sale after devastating typhoon damage.

Park, now 80, said he worried Dongchoon could disappear into history after seeing newspaper reports that its assets would be split into parts and sold.

“I thought Dongchoon must not disappear. When we want to study the roots of our country's dramas, we should look back on the traces of Dongchoon. The same goes for the history of our other shows, traditional music performances and magic shows as well as circuses themselves,” Park said.

Heo Jeong Joo, an expert at the All That Heritage Research Institute, also values highly the legacy of Dongchoon, which she said incorporated many traditional performers and artists who operated before its 1925 founding.

“Its foundation exceeds 100 years. In a historical perspective, I think it should be designated as an intangible cultural asset,” Heo said.

Park said he almost closed the circus in 2009 after his shows drew only 10-20 spectators each for several months during a widespread flu outbreak. It survived after local media reports sympathizing with the plight of Dongchoon prompted many people to flock and fully pack shows for weeks, he said.

Since 2011, Dongchoon has been performing at a big top at a seaside tourist area in Ansan, just south of Seoul. Its circus workers also frequently travel to other areas for temporary shows. Dongchoon officials said their business is doing relatively well, drawing several hundred spectators on weekdays and up to 2,000 on weekends at Ansan alone.

Ansan official Sharon Ham said local tourism has been boosted by Dongchoon's presence. She said Dongchoon shows are popular with both older generations wanting to recall childhood memories of circuses and younger generations seeking something new.

“It was a very impressive and meaningful circus,” Sim Chung-yong, a 61-year-old spectator, said after one show last week. “But I also thought about how much big pains and hardships those circus acrobats underwent to perform like this.”

Dongchoon officials say they now offer only acrobatic performances and refrain from too-risky acts because many people don't like them any longer.

Its all 35 acrobats are now Chinese, as a circus job is generally shunned by more affluent South Koreans who consider it too dangerous and low-paying. Park said he bought land at Ansan where he hopes to build a circus school to nurture South Korean circus artists.

Xing Jiangtao, 37, has been working for Dongchoon since 2002 — initially as an acrobat and now as its performance director. He recalled that when he first came to South Korea, he and his Chinese colleagues all worked as assistants to Dongchoon's 50 South Korean acrobats but they've all left one by one.

“Now, it's the only circus in South Korea, and I hope we will create good circus performances to show to spectators so that we can help Dongchoon exist for another 100 years," Xing said in fluent Korean.

Park Sae-hwan, head of Dongchoon Circus Troupe, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Park Sae-hwan, head of Dongchoon Circus Troupe, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Acrobats from Dongchoon Circus Troupe, South Korea's last-remaining circus, perform in Ansan, South Korea, Sunday, June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Spectators leave after watching a daily regular performance in Ansan, South Korea, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Acrobats from Dongchoon Circus Troupe, South Korea's last-remaining circus, perform in Ansan, South Korea, Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The president of the International Paralympic Committee was disappointed with the complaints made by Ukraine's National Paralympic Committee during the Milan Cortina Games, saying they appeared to be an attempt to shift the focus from sports to politics.

Andrew Parsons spoke with The Associated Press on the final day of the Winter Paralympic Games on Sunday, praising the outcome of the competition and discussing the return of the Russian flag and anthem, the effects of the warmer weather and the challenges of organizing the event at widespread venues.

Parsons called it “disappointing” that the Ukrainian National Paralympic Committee and the national committees of other nations tried to turn the focus away from sports.

He said he was “super empathetic” with the situation in Ukraine and can “only try to imagine the horror,” but as a sports organization, the IPC must make sure that rules are not broken, even by the Ukrainian committee.

“Yes, I think there was an attempt to always take the focus from sport,” Parsons said. “And I think at the end, even the other national Paralympic committees responded really well, focusing on sports. I understand, but it is disappointing to some extent.”

He said it was expected to see governments attempting to shift the focus toward politics, but it was regrettable that sports bodies were doing it.

“I do hope this is a lesson learned also for those NPCs that have chosen to focus more on the political side than on the sport side, because sport has prevailed,” he said.

Ukraine and a few other nations boycotted the opening ceremony — and were set to boycott Sunday's closing ceremony as well — because of the IPC's decision to give Russian athletes wildcard entries for the Games and allow them to compete under their own flag for the first time in more than a decade.

Ukraine’s Paralympic committee accused the IPC and Milan Cortina organizers of subjecting Ukraine’s athletes and coaches to “systematic pressure.” It said the incidents included the alleged forceful removal of a Ukrainian flag, the breaking up of planning meetings by the Ukrainian team, and the prohibition of a Ukrainian athlete from wearing an earring with the words “Stop War” at a podium ceremony. The IPC and local organizers defended their actions.

Parsons said it was expected that some nations weren't happy with the return of the Russian flag, but he felt that the “vast majority” of the national Paralympic committees focused on sport, “because the sport element of it is what helps us fulfill our mission, which is to make for a more inclusive world through Para sport, and not external politics.”

“There was still some voices out there trying to continue focusing on what, in our opinion, should not be the focus of these games, but I think the overall impression of the people, especially people at home watching on TV or following the media, following the news, is (the focus) was more on athletes, more on sport, records, than in politics,” he said.

The Russian flag flew at the Paralympics for the first time since the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, and the anthem was played for the first time at a major global sporting event since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The return of the Russian flag and anthem was seen by some as a signal of a possible full-fledged return to Olympic circles ahead of the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

Parson said the general assembly made the vote to lift the suspension solely with the best interests of the Paralympic movement in mind.

“We don’t think that we are going to initiate processes,” he said. “I know some people believe that this might have the impact on another sporting body, but that’s not what we’re focusing on. It’s for the IOC to make their decisions, it’s for FIFA to make their decisions, and every other international organization to make their decisions."

Parsons said discussions will continue about the effect of warmer weather on the Paralympics. Milan Cortina organizers had to change the schedule of some events because of high temperatures, and some athletes competed in shorts, T-shirts and tank tops.

“Unfortunately, global leaders are not responding in the speed that is necessary to slow down the process," he said. "So this is probably a trend that we will see in 2030, ‘34, ’38 '42 and so on. So we need to have those discussions, and we are having those discussions” within the IPC and together with the IOC and international federations.

“It’s a very big jigsaw puzzle,” Parsons said. “It’s not only, ‘OK, let’s move the Games one month in advance — Olympics in January, Paralympics in February.' That is also an impact on the regular season of those sports. So we need to consider all these different elements. These discussions are taking place. We are not sitting on our hands.”

Parsons said the model of spread-out Games — with competitions and venues in different clusters to reduce the cost of building new facilities — is “here to stay.”

“I think the biggest learning is that it is possible to have great Games, even with that widespread venue master plan. It does not compromise the spirit of the Games, but, yes, brings additional complexity to the operations that needs to be mitigated, and needs to be well understood, and I think having this first experience here, we have a lot of learning to take to 2030, 2034.”

AP Winter Paralympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paralympic-games

Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee, speaks during the opening ceremony at the 2026 Winter Paralympics, in Verona, Italy, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)