T he Cyclown Circus exerts a powerful pull. Its shows shout "Run away and join us!" and since its inception in Texas, more than 100 people from all over the world have answered the call to do just that.

"I saw one of their giant bikes go by the other night, and I thought it was a drunken apparition," confides an audience member in Beijing.

As she applauds, she admits that she is glad to realize the reality of the "mutant bicycles" stacked three deep against the wall of the venue, just visible behind the ongoing show. Standing about twice as high as ordinary bicycles, laden with bells, flags and sundry baubles, it is indeed easy to mistake these contraptions and their riders for something out of a dream.

Bowling pins whiz through the air, narrowly missing another member of the audience who finds himself between jugglers, a cigarette clenched between his lips. The jugglers stop and their victim removes the cigarette, smiling as if he has just escaped execution.

Backed by contra bass, accordion, a drummer wearing his kit on a belt and others, a young woman-cum-modern- day gypsy sings soulfully in the street. The "animal trainer" of the circus playfully snatches the bassist's instrument, mock struggles with him, and passes it off to her wild beast of burden - a man who impossibly balances the bass on his chin, arms thrown wide, head weaving to keep the instrument upright and aloft.

From "hot jazz" to clowning to the theatrical flourish that graces its arrival at any venue, the Cyclown Circus puts on a surreal show. Its cyclowns also live a surreal life.

For six years the circus has been traveling the world on outsized bicycles, entertaining as it goes, a roving band of "musicians, jugglers, and ding- bats" that is part-artist collective, part- eco conscience and part party. Performers number around 10, staying for different lengths of time, sometimes leaving and then returning within the year.

The cyclowns own only what they can carry on their backs and homemade bikes, are guided by an anarchic decision-making process and are devoted to the politics of their non- petroleum means of travel.

This lifestyle began simply, when a performer and accordion player called Channing "Durak" finished high school and decided, despite others' doubts, to head off on his bicycle to travel. Like some others in the circus, Channing has a litany of nicknames and show names - "Durak", for instance, means "fool" in Russian - but is hard to pin down on his full given name. That first year, Channing crisscrossed the United States, made inroads into Mexico, was rejected at the Canadian border and got started on the road that he has been following since. It is a road on which normal life, standards of conformity and even names can be left behind. This road has taken Channing and the cyclowns all over North America and Europe, south to Morocco and most recently to Asia.

Though there is something of the old- fashioned about the circus and its oeuvre of mostly early 20th-century music, this free association of free spirits stays in touch with fans and friends "through e-mail and ESP." E-mail is especially important given the far-flung origins of the performers - the current 10 hail from the United States, Quebec, Italy and Argentina. If the cyclowns can be said to have any permanent home, it is in cyberspace where a MySpace account gives them a way to reach out and a Web site details the mission and meanderings of the circus.

For now, the cyclowns are making their itinerant way through Asia. After a spring and summer of travel through Turkey, Georgia, Russia and finally Mongolia, the circus arrived in China for the first time nearly three months ago.

This entree into a new world has brought attendant surprises. Despite being wedded by their mode of travel to a relatively non-materialistic way of life, in China the cyclowns find themselves driven to consume.

"We all want to buy things," emphasizes Raffaele Cataldo, one of the group's versatile musicians. "Now this and now that. Compared to the countries we've been in recently, China - a country that's really productive - is a completely different world."

Cataldo normally plays the violin and the guitar but he aspires for the circus to be able to perform as a marching band - "the violin's just not loud enough." In Beijing, he has bought a trumpet and started to practice.

In addition to buying new instruments, the circus has been adopting more technology. "We've all been Luddites [up until now]," points out Cataldo. But China is working its early adopter magic and in Beijing the cyclowns have been gifted a mobile phone. They now have two between the 10 of them. Some group members are thinking about buying mp3 players.

Another change for the circus has been the local arts scene. In their month in Beijing, the cyclowns have had ample time to explore it. Prior to that they spent three weeks in the artist village of Xiaopu, outside the city.

"We've been in Turkey, Georgia, Mongolia - there's more of an arts scene here," asserts Channing. Though the cyclowns have varied opinions about the quality of the work that is being done, the group is happy to be around artists. And the circus loves China's version of public performance, from the musical vaudeville of the rural north to the traditional music in Beijing's parks at night.

In terms of bike philosophy, the cyclowns have perhaps found something of a spiritual home in Beijing. Their own tall bikes are gawk-worthy machines and many speak admiringly about the Chinese art of stacking bikes high with just about anything.

"We really love the bike culture here," proclaims Johnnie Joyce, who as bassist perhaps most appreciates the art of loading a bicycle.

In many ways, Beijing has been kind to the Cyclown Circus. Individual cyclowns and the circus as a whole have been able to pick up extra jobs and cash from a range of sources including playing shows with established local bands and working at a Montessori international school for children, thus allowing the extra consumption.

There is no doubt the circus has been well-received there.

"This is some crazy music you don't get that often in Beijing," says Vinny Ng, who met the cyclowns at a performance and took a few home on learning that they were planning to spend the night in a park. With the help of new friends like Ng, the circus has performed to substantial crowds at bars such as Dos Kolegas, the Xinjiang Music Bar and Cheers Bar. This stay in Beijing has also led to the opportunity to record a second album in less than a year.

"We can say stupid in pretty much every language of every country we've been to," Cataldo states matter-of- factly. In China, the performers have made themselves a sign sporting the characters er bai wu - Putonghua for "idiot" - and liberally use it as a prop in their shows. This newly learned phrase also inspired the title of their new album, Er Bai Wu Edition, the follow- up to Maria's Breakdown which was recorded in Cyprus in 2006.

Despite the perks of city living, the group has been somewhat frustrated in Beijing. The circus' primary art form is street theater and is the cornerstone on which it is able to continue functioning. The bikes are for performance as well as conveyance; finding room and board wherever the cyclowns go means putting on a street show as soon as they arrive anywhere and performing for their daily bread and veggies. But playing to the streets has been nearly impossible, as crowds tend to be dispersed within 20 minutes after they form. The cyclowns have always been treated politely by the police, and have never been asked to do more than "rest" while their audience is shooed away.

What draws the cyclowns together is a passion for the audience give-and- take that characterizes this type of art which affords performers a chance to have meaningful interactions all over the world with a large number and wide range of people.

Jenine Alexander, the bass-thieving "animal trainer," first met the cyclowns on the streets of Cyprus. "When I decided to join the circus, it was a leap for me," Alexander says, but the chance to travel and learn differently grabbed her. "With the circus comes a way of traveling and interacting with people that's better."

Piero, faux beast star of the circus' balancing act and its master bike maker, opines: "The street is our philosophy. Anything can happen there. But the police here are really afraid when people form crowds."

Though it has found welcoming venues and played to enthused audiences, the Cyclown Circus has essentially been trapped indoors in Beijing.

So the cyclowns find themselves performing in bars, occasionally taking their shows just outside these venues, and meeting fewer people than they ordinarily do. They also have not yet had the chance to perform for disadvantaged children, something they usually prioritize. However, it's the restraints imposed by walls and ceilings that are most difficult for those performers who are not musicians. As Piero puts it, sadly, "We can't put on a circus here. Just music."

Since their entrance into China, when their bikes were mistaken for salable imports and at first failed to cross the border with them, the cyclowns have been struggling with the experience of Chinese bureaucracy and authority. At least one cyclown has been asked to cover the sign affixed to his tall bike, which reads: "Bicycling: A Quiet Statement Against Oil Wars." These signs, prominently displayed, are the only obvious expression of the circus' politics and its purpose of "providing an entertaining alternative to car culture."

As Channing asserts, "The circus is by default a political statement. We travel around without petroleum products - we don't use them, except for occasional fire shows and our rubber tires." As an afterthought, he adds, "And for drinking."

The circus was disappointed in its attempts to take up short term residence in Xiaopu, "the famous artist village of Beijing." In three weeks there, the cyclowns found two houses to rent, one after the other, even going so far as to pay the rent on the first house and buy a bed for the second. But in both cases, the circus ran into difficulties with the authorities. After being told that they could not register at the second house, the cyclowns came to Beijing, where they have split up and are being put up by volunteers like Ng.

Living differently is never easy. Cyclown Circus life "can be difficult," reveals Shanty Town, the group's drummer. "Some moments are difficult. But some moments are beautiful, amazing." Never knowing what tomorrow will bring is counted among the difficulties as well as the pleasures of circus living.

The cyclowns have a general plan for the near future. Soon they will leave Beijing and continue to cycle south, likely stopping in Chengdu and Kunming, and slowly meandering towards Southeast Asia. They have an offer of a place to winter in Thailand, which they may or may not take up. As usual, details of their plans are vague.

Given the logistical difficulties involved in getting 10 or so cyclowns housed, fed, and ready to travel and perform, and the anarchic nature of the circus' multilingual decision making process, the performers rarely know what they will be doing tomorrow. To-do items remain on lists, undone, for months. Much depends on serendipity, and sometimes the circus meets with disaster.

"We talk about things and talk about things and eventually it coalesces," explains Cataldo. "Things happen - we don't make them happen. We wait for the good moment - it comes. Eventually it just happens that we have nothing more to do in a place, and we leave." Soon the circus will run out of things to do in Beijing and already, most of the cyclowns are itching to be on their way.

Town is the only one who travels by ordinary "short" bike, which allows him to see the looks on people's faces as the circus rolls by. When asked why he joined the circus and why he remains, it is clear that for all of the struggles, Town embraces the lifestyle. He loves the amazed expressions on bystanders' faces and hearing that one of the cyclowns was mistaken for an hallucination.

"I was attracted to the surreal life," he declares. "There's a circus bicycling through Asia. It's a hard thing to miss."