"Born and bred in the circus," Bobbi the Clown knows all about making kids and the elderly laugh.

Thursday morning, Australia-native Bobbi emceed a mini performance of the Circus Chimera for children who are in-patients at Shriners Hospital for Children. Circus Chimera, performing at the State Fairpark through Saturday, makes it a point to visit children's hospitals and nursing homes and special schools in the towns it visits, Bobbi says.

The hospital provides orthopedic care to children, all paid for by the Shriners Endowment Fund.

Kids like Eli Stones, 6, of Pocatello, Idaho, sat forward in their wheelchairs to watch contortionist Ekaterina Bazarova sit on her own head. And they gasped when Lin Lin and Shu-man exchanged diabolos (a kind of Chinese yo-yo) midair across the hospital recreation room.

This is the first year with the circus for Shu-Man and Lin Lin, who are Beijing acrobats. At one point, one stood on the other's head to work the diabolos, collecting applause from the children and quiet achy-neck groans from their parents and grandparents.

Bazarova, a former gymnast with the Russian Olympic team and current Twister world champion, has been with the circus for a couple of years. She is the centerpiece of the "Alice in Wonderland" theme in the current traveling show.

Members perform 16 times a week and about 10 months a year, Bobbi says of Circus Chimera. And the most gratifying part is taking the show to people who can't come to the show, she says.

"What's rewarding is the smiles and amazement on the faces of the children and of the adults as they get to be children again," she says.

Thomas Stone, Eli's dad, could relate to that. Eli was born with a partial club foot, and surgeons on Monday relocated one of the tendons to improve his balance. The boy will be in casts for six weeks.

But for a minute Thursday, it was all forgotten, father and son lost in the sights of the circus.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com