"From what I know, it seems to be poor planning more than anything else," said Bill Thompson, the executive director of the Union Gospel Mission homeless shelter. "Somebody didn't take care of business, the homework."
Thompson said he picked up the group Monday after getting a phone call from a mysterious circus promoter who referred to himself only as Gary and declined to give a last name. The man, who lives in Wisconsin with his mother, told Thompson he had run out of money and needed someone to pick up the acrobats, who range in age from 13 to 20.
"He sounded desperate, no doubt," Thompson said.
Thompson and other shelter workers arrived at the airport in three vans and no clue how to find the troupe. Thompson finally found a group of 18 people who fit the bill -- 16 acrobats and two adults -- and broke through the language barrier by saying "the one word we could all agree on: acrobat."
After dropping luggage and circus props off at separate shelters for men and women, Thompson took the Shanghai-based Guanhua Acrobatic team to a McDonald's restaurant.
"They all ordered the No. 9: grilled chicken," Thompson said.
Then the acrobats settled in for two nights at Union Gospel Mission, which claims to be Dallas' oldest homeless shelter and once housed refugees scattered by Hurricane Katrina.
The troupe put on an impromptu show for reporters Wednesday, tossing straw hats like boomerangs and performing backflips, cartwheels and building human pyramids with ease. They also seemed remarkably sanguine about their situation, saying it was status quo for circus performers.
But a former chaplain at the homeless shelter was puzzled that the accommodations were the best Dallas could offer. She wondered about reaction if "a group of American kids go to Beijing, China" and met a similar plight.
"To me the whole arrangement is weird," former chaplain Candy Yeung told The Dallas Morning News, which first reported the story Wednesday. "How could it happen to this group of kids?"
The acrobats said through a translator that they were looking forward to possible performances in the Dallas area, Chicago, Wisconsin and Las Vegas, Nev.
"I have a confidence we can find a tour in the U.S.," Wenbin Gao, one of the adults traveling with the acrobats, said through a translator. "We're used to it. We're used to waiting."
Contacted by The Associated Press, the circus promoter refused to give his last name during a telephone interview. He called the mistake "a little scheduling snafu," saying trailers he purchased for the group never arrived in Texas because of recent snowstorms in the Midwest. He said he still expects to line up performances for the troupe.
"Nobody is trying to do anything shifty," he said. "I'm trying to do something nice, not something dastardly. It's already fixed."
By Wednesday afternoon, the promoter said he arranged for the group to stay at a ranch near Dallas owned by another performer. Thompson confirmed they had left.
"They are going to another performer's place and they are warm and getting fed," the promoter said. "We're going to get them performing and get them happy."
