Juggling family life, clowning for circus

It’s two hours before another performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s 133rd edition of the Greatest Show on Earth, and a cloud of white powder surrounds Bello Nock’s face.

Mr. Nock, who is known as Bello the Clown with a signature 8 inches of red hair that stands straight up, slaps on additional layers of stage makeup. He adds a streak of blue eyeliner, blush to his cheeks and the tip of his nose, thick lines to his eyebrows and pink to his lips.

On March 25 at the MCI Center, the Greatest Show on Earth is holding its first night in the Washington area.

Mr. Nock’s two daughters, Amariah, 10, and Annaliese, 6, sit side by side as they do their schoolwork in a makeshift dressing room. His son, Alex, 14, plays on the computer. The week before, the family was in a similar dressing room in Baltimore, and in mid-April they will be in another one in Charleston, W.Va.

That’s life and school on the road for the Nock family.

“It’s tough, but life is what you make of it,” says Mr. Nock, who is 35 and a native of Sarasota, Fla. “Every week is a different city, but you have to make it home.”

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Mr. Nock and his wife of nearly 15 years, Jennifer, travel an average of 48 weeks a year as part of the Red Unit, one of two units touring for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey with 98 performers and another 177 staff and crew.

The Nocks drive separately from the 56-car train that transports most of the Red Unit performers. Those who have an animal act or families can choose to travel separately in their own motor homes, a total of about 10 to 15 families and performers. The Nocks take a 78-foot RV and a semi-truck of circus equipment, leaving behind their central Florida home for most of the year, where Mr. Nock has “a playground of circus toys.”

In a typical week, Mr. Nock has Monday and Tuesday off, as does most of the unit (though some staff members work on Tuesday to set up ladders, nets and cables and the stage set). After the Nocks arrive in each new city, they look for a restaurant for Monday’s dinner and tour the area on Tuesday.

Mrs. Nock says that finding the local post office, grocery store and occasionally the doctor’s office is “the hardest part of being on the road,” along with having to pack every week. “It’s neat, too, because we’re always together.”

Performances begin on Wednesdays and typically continue through Sunday with one to three shows a day. That’s when Mrs. Nock, who studied early childhood education for two years, home-schools their three children, giving them the freedom to take off Monday and Tuesday to be with her and their father.

“In regular school, you have to go every day and go at a certain time,” says Annaliese, who is in the second grade. “We can do it just whenever.”

The Nocks agree that even if Mr. Nock worked a 9-to-5 job, they still would choose to home school their children.

“I want my kids to have that consistency. I want to know what they’re taught and how,” Mrs. Nock says.

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