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Fran Antmann

Photographer

The Hoxie Brothers Circus

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I traveled with the Hoxie Brothers itinerant Circus on one-night stands from the coast of Maine to Florida in 1973. Each night they brought down the great tent and each morning, they drove the stakes into new ground and hoisted the sail.

The blond lady on the flying trapeze soared above the children’s gaze, disappearing momentarily into the webbing of the tent. She felt no fear hanging upside down 500 feet high in the air, only a claustrophobic dread that one day she would die alone in a small windowless room.

A little Mexican boy peered out from a wooden crate. He was placed in the box by the side of the tent during the performance while his parents balanced on the high wire. They assured him they could see him from above. He watched them tiptoe through the air until they became small like him. He was comforted, looking up and seeing them move across the top of the tent like giant spiders. Only when they lifted him out of the box and he felt his father's mustache against his skin did he begin to cry.

“I have no great aim...p;rsquo;m not sure.”

2 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“I have no great aim in life. I do want to have enough so that if I grow that old I won’t be stuck in a little room, a little attic, tired, bored, praying for death. I don’t want that, but what do I want, I’m not sure.”

“Like me, no matter ... better.’”

3 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“Like me, no matter how good I ever get somebody’s always going to say ‘Well she’s alright but her father or her grandfather, you know, were much better.’”

“Remember, our reali...to save the circus.”

4 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“Remember, our realities are different. A circus working man comes on, is going to spend a few weeks, but this is my life. He’s not interested in learning any more about the circus than how to tie the rope right so that the boss don’t yell at him. I’m interested in learning the whole circus because someday it might be necessary for me to get out there and do it, to save the circus.”

“But sometimes when ...where I like to be.”

5 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“But sometimes when I question myself, my God, another show with nobody here, why am I going to be in there—another hundred-mile jump, going away from where I like to be.”

“Well, this is all w...ife, so we like it.”

6 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“Well, this is all we know so we like it so we’ve never been in another kind of life, so we like it.”

“We have a daughter ...lived in the Bronx.”

7 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“We have a daughter which will be 11 years old, and she didn’t like the circus and I did, so she lived in the Bronx.”

“So this is how ever...e will be the same.”

8 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“So this is how everything’s been to now, we’ve been in circus, going from one to another one, changing, one year here, one year to another one, so fine too. I think ‘till we die will be the same.”

“There’s s...omen on the circus.”

9 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“There’s small toddlers and when their parents are performing everybody watches out to make sure that they don’t get into trouble. If there’s a certain mother or something that’s not taking good enough care of her child, she’ll hear about it from the other women on the circus.”

“Kids in the circus ...ot along very good.”

10 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“Kids in the circus have to grow up ten times faster than kids in the town because it’s a hard life and it’s…there’s just a lot of things that they’re confronted with that they have to accept at a very young age. When you go back to school it’s just completely different and it’s very hard to cope with and I never really got along very good.”

“Funny thing, you sa...there in the flesh.”

11 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“Funny thing, you say you’re out there amongst thousands of people and sometimes you feel like the most lonely person on the face of the earth, because this is a job, you know what I mean, it’s a business and you know that the success of your profession is what you do before the audience, because this is life, it’s no makeup or put together, there’s no screen or movie or nothing, it’s nothing added, it’s there in the flesh.”

“Yah, well that&...uarded and open up.”

12 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“Yah, well that’s why I tell you that the world is sham and pretext, it’s out here and I shed it when I walk into the ring. And for that few moments, I can be real, I can be alive and real and unguarded and open up.”

The Hoxie Brothers Circus

“I want their laught...m cry if I need to.”

14 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“I want their laughter, that’s the basic thing I’m after. I want a gamut of emotions, from them. I want to be able to make them cry if I need to.”

“The animals, like I...amp;rsquo;re human.”

15 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“The animals, like I say, usually when they’re trained and you get hurt or something, in the cages, it’s the trainer’s fault. Because the animals are broke to do one thing, a certain thing, and that’s it. Like here you’re inside the Big Top, today you got a small crowd so you go by the routine. Tomorrow you got a big crowd and it’s cheering, builds up the morale of yourself and the people. You try to add a little more because they’re waiting on you. In other words, you supposed to move to the right but you go to the left. They’re out there waiting, you see. We’re human.”

“You know these circ...e to go…”

16 of 16 © 2025 Fran Antmann

“You know these circuses, used to be the only thing a black man could do around the circus was put up the tents, the hard work. Like I say, it’s a great honor to see these new guys perform. I know guys throughout the country around the circus. Oh I’d say 45, 50 years old men, and really they are martyrs, because they say, gee, you know, when I was running roundabout, I never thought I’d see the day that I would see a black performer in the ring. We thought that would never happen. Time changes, so you have to go…”

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Thumbnail of “I have no great aim _mp;rsquo;m not sure.”

Thumbnail of “Like me, no matter h_h better.’”

Thumbnail of “Remember, our realit_ to save the circus.”

Thumbnail of “But sometimes when I_ where I like to be.”

Thumbnail of “Well, this is all we_life, so we like it.”

Thumbnail of “We have a daughter w_ lived in the Bronx.”

Thumbnail of “So this is how every_ie will be the same.”

Thumbnail of “There’s sm_women on the circus.”

Thumbnail of “Kids in the circus h_got along very good.”

Thumbnail of “Funny thing, you say_ there in the flesh.”

Thumbnail of “Yah, well that&r_guarded and open up.”

Thumbnail of The Hoxie Brothers Circus

Thumbnail of “I want their laughte_em cry if I need to.”

Thumbnail of “The animals, like I _’re human.”

Thumbnail of “You know these circu_ve to go…”

Private Project

The Hoxie Brothers Circus

Copyright Fran Antmann 2025

Updated Mar 2025

Location San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala

In Peru, in the barren stretches above the Andean timberline, there is a mining town named Morococha. In Quechua, the Indigenous language, it means "lake of many colors." At 15,000 feet, the air is scarce and breathing torturous. No greenery survives, not even the tenacious ichu, the wirelike bunch grass that can endure the gales of the high puna.

I came to Morococha to recover and research the work of an unknown Peruvian photographer Sebastian Rodriguez who had been the only photographer to document the life of the mines in South America beginning in 1928.

For two years I traveled between Morococha and the miners' hometowns throughout the Peruvian highlands searching for fragments of that past. I've continued to photograph the lives and culture of these people.

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