Circus Contraption brings a bizarre busload of fun to Big Sur.

The Aardvark Ballerinas, Circus Contraption''s mascots, can be graceful and goofy--and maybe a little scary.

If their bus holds together, Circus Contraption''s appearance at the Henry Miller Library on Sunday promises to be one of the quirkiest acts to hit Monterey County in a good long while.

This is the circus'' first tour outside the Pacific Northwest. Like many other groups on their maiden voyage, the Contraptionists bought an old bus, gutted it to make some basic living accommodations, added luggage racks and hit the road. But about the time the speedometer hit 35 mph, the vehicle began shimmying and shaking and making such fearful protests that the performers had to turn around and regroup. By the time they got their costumes, props, trapezes, juggling equipment and menagerie of puppets unloaded from the bus and reloaded into a caravan of cars, it was too late for them to make their first gig.

They''ve had the bus worked on a couple of times in the interim but nobody can quite figure out the problem. But they say they now have the weight redistributed so the bus can hit about 45 mph before things get too shaky.

Armitage Shanks, co-founder and ringmaster for Circus Contraption, called the Weekly from a pay phone outside a garage near Weed, in northern California, while another mechanic took another look at the bus. According to Shanks, Circus Contraption has been together for about three and a half years, the offshoot of Shanks'' former rock band, Phineas Gage. Shanks describes the band as having been performance-based, a group that relied as much on creating a scene that was visually stimulating and interactive as it was aurally interesting. "I appreciate going into a club and seeing good music," says Shanks, "but it''s more interesting to go into someplace where there is an experience. You get to be taken to another world for a while."

One of the performers who teamed up with Shanks was Darty Kangoo. "She was working as an aerialist," says Shanks, "doing things for private clients, parties, benefits and, occasionally, things with the band. We were trying to think of something to do together and that got our juices flowing." The result was Circus Contraption, a group that mixes live music with more or less traditional circus fare like high-wire/trapeze acts, juggling and balancing acts, as well as poetry and live music.

Since its inception, Circus Contraption has grown to include 16 performers ranging from 10 to 40 years old. All the acts in the show have been developed with group input and collaboration. While Shanks has final say over the musical offerings, and Darty has the ultimate word on the acts and how they''re presented, even they have a difficult time explaining exactly how to describe Circus Contraption. Regardless of whether the acts spring from traditional roots, they have been cross-bred with a lot of other influences to create a show that almost defies explanation.

"There is a lot of collateral inspiration," says Shanks. "Darty draws from dreamwork and surreal imagery, and the band has a lot of influences from klezmer to Gypsy to Tom Waits, depending on the piece. Everyone in the circus is a purveyor of culture--in its broadest sense.

"I think one of the influences for all of us has been German cabaret theater, where there is a darker, Edward Gorey sensibility."

But even if the show walks a little on the dark side, all of the acts rely on a certain artistic sensibility. This is not a freak-show in the style of the Jim Rose Circus, which relies almost exclusively on the shock value of acts that include split tongues, penis tricks and bare-breasted women taking grinders to their crotches.

That isn''t to say Circus Contraption doesn''t have its share of oddities. The Baby Aardvark Ballerinas, with their long snouts and tutus, have become the circus'' mascots, equally capable of gracefully dancing on pointe or falling on their faces. The Pelican Girl is an odd mix of grace and grotesquery. The Beetle Tamer must share the ring with a six-foot, ferocious and sexy beetle. There are fairies who look like dwarves performing on the Spanish web and jugglers who seem to have escaped from an assembly line.

Depending on the venue, Circus Contraption''s offerings range from the merely dark to the decidedly depraved. Shanks says he and his colleagues recognize that there would be a limited market for their act if everything they did was adult-oriented, so they tailored the show so that it would play equally well in family-oriented festival settings as it does in nightclubs. For this weekend''s gig at the Henry Miller Library, it''s not likely that the Circus'' midway ring-toss game will make an appearance. While the library''s namesake might have smiled at the strap-on phallus waiting to be ringed, parents might be less receptive.

On the other hand, it''s pretty likely that the Juggling Jukebox, in which the audience picks a song and sets a frozen juggler in motion, will be on hand.

"One of the things that''s great is we can go to festivals and tickle kids with the goofiness," says Shanks, "and then we have the darker side that people can take in. Sometimes I think we''re a dark Bugs Bunny cartoon where the kids are laughing at the coyote and the adults are laughing at the satire."

There''s a pause in the conversation. Then Shanks says, "There goes the bus. Maybe it''s ready to go now."

There''s something appropriately weird about the image of a bus loaded with 16 circus performers crawling down the highway from Seattle at 45 mph. It turns decidedly surreal when thinking about that same bus negotiating the curves to Big Sur. One suspects that by the time the members of the troupe make the gig, they''ll believe they''re living the world they have created.