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Australia's
Flying Fruit Fly Circus, with its associated High School, recently
celebrated its twentieth year. It was founded by the Murray River
Performing Group (now Hothouse Theatre) in 1979, to celebrate the
International Year of the Child. Two years earlier, Suitcase Circus
was founded in Edinburgh,
Scotland, with the aim of establishing local community circuses
and youth circuses. Neither company had any real awareness of a
tradition of participatory Circus for young people. In my
book New Circus (1985) I listed and described many of the
different kinds of amateur circus activities happening around the
world, together with a listing of the thirty-one known Circus Schools.
Today the first list would number hundreds, maybe thousands, and
there are probably around sixty Circus Schools.
Clearly something is afoot. A movement is growing. Thousands of
otherwise normal people are learning juggling, flying trapeze, unicycling
- almost every human-based circus skill. In this article, I shall
look at the appeal and benefits - intellectual, physical, social
and emotional - of what we shall call `Recreational Circus'. Then
I shall hazard some answers to the question: `If this Circus stuff
is so "Good For You", why has it not been universallv
adopted by schools; why is there so little Circus in Education?'
The academic image of circus
A
search of the academic literature indicates a very low number of
postgraduate theses and other papers on Circus-related themes.
For English speaking undergraduate study, the options are growing.
In Melbourne, NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts) offers five
hundred TAFE-accredited hours in their current training project.
Charles Sturt University at Bathurst, the Tisch School of Arts at
New York University, and others offer a Circus Arts course as part
of a more general degree. Christchurch Polytechnic in New Zealand,
Circus Space in London and Circomedia in Bristol offer 2-3 year
Circus training providing tertiary qualifications. The best-endowed
vocational Circus Schools are at Chalons-sur-Marne, France and Montreal,
Canada. There are important centres of training in San Francisco,
in South -kmerica, China, Eastern Europe, North
Korea and, hopefully, still in Russia.
So where is the scholarship?
Visit any library, especially any university library, looking for
books on criticism or aesthetic studies of different art forms.
There are shelves and
shelves full of music theory, literary criticism,
visual art analysis, drama studies. You'll find semiotic readings
and endless de-constructions all the above. Now look for the section
of Circus studies. You'll be lucky to find one volume! There is
a maxim among publishers: 'No-one buys Circus Books'. Well, I do.
I am the custodian of a collection of over five hundred, including
history, biography, fiction, juvenilia, art, technique, and some
criticism (in Chinese and French). Maybe I buy Circus Books because
I write them. This is the principle of the Karmic Hitch-hiker.
`I pick up hitchhikers because one day I might need a lift myself.'
The pragmatic world of publishing acknowledges no such karmic resonance,
nor, it seems, does the academic world. There is a pitiful
dearth of academic work on Circus because it is presumed that no-one
wants to read it.
This may have been the case in the past, but
my assertion is that things have changed. Thousands of people have
taken up Recreational Circus. Many schools in many countries have
begun to include elements of Circus on the curriculum. New Circus
companies are springing up all over the world. Circus is being used
by environmental, humanitarian and peace-making groups (eg Croissante-Neuf
in
England, Circus Ethiopia, Belfast Community Circus.
Even the very corporate Cirque du Soleil has linked itself with
Oxfam and Community Aid Abroad.) New, high quality journals are
now published which raise the standard of review way beyond the
chronicling of acts and the adulation of artists which are traditional
among the Circus Fans' or Friends' magazines. Spectacle produced
in the USA constantly questions tradition, and highlights the individual
creativity and originality of all types of Circus artists. Le
Monde du Cirque and Planet Circus are glossy multilingual
journals featuring quality photos and sparkling essays, reviews,
interviews, portraits and philosophies of many of our best writers
in the field.
We have not yet a clear idea of who reads them.
My theory is that there is a growing population of well-educated
people who, like myself, are not at the front line of Circus performance,
but who have a great interest in and affection for this field of
human endeavour. We may revel in the irony of such a sophisticated
art form dismissed by masses as `clowning around'. We may believe
that Circus is the purest form of dramatic art, drawing its power
from that same magic that endowed the shaman as he suffered and
soared for his `primitive' audience around his ritual ring of fire.
We may be convinced that Circuses showing animal acts are the pioneers
of a new breed of `Show 'n' Tell' environmentalists, whose mission
is to bring the experience of exotic animals to the public in a
last, desperate attempt to persuade us to curb our consumer lifestyle,
and to save enough planet for wild life to remain wild. We may see
Circus as the best example of our fin-de-siecle preoccupation with
cross art-form collaboration, a true `hybrid' art.
However much we may enjoy the new journals, and look
forward to some real Circus scholarship, we might have to concede
that our enthusiasm for the written word identifies us not only
as Circus aficionados, but also as dilettantes. A recent informal
survey of leading performers at the National Circus Festival at
Albury/Wodonga asked `what books have inspired or influenced you
as a performer?' The answers included several pure technique manuals
(e.g. juggling and diabolo), some inspirational works like Henry
Miller's `The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder', and then works on
associated disciplines like theatre, yoga and feminism. Many performers
couldn't credit any books, and no respondents cited works on Circus
history, philosophy or aesthetics.
My experience of traditional Circus people leads
me to generalise that literature is not a major part of their culture.
Early itinerant performers in Europe, like Aboriginal people in
Australia, maintained a tradition of passing on `business',
within the family, typically father to son, mother to daughter.
There were never any written histories nor do-it-yourself manuals
either for making boomerangs or for flying trapeze. This lack of
literary communication among Circus folk could be due to secrecy,
or illiteracy, or to the pointlessness of transmitting complex physical
skills through the written word.
Today, the act which has by far the largest bibliography
in the `techniques' section of my Circus library is Juggling. It
almost outnumbers all the others combined. There is nothing on Trapeze,
precious little on Wire-walking. Why? Because Juggling is the ideal
Circus Skill for the amateur. Hobby jugglers don't need a venue,
an installation, or even an audience. They can simply satisfy themselves,
or a friend, that they have improved their three-ball cascade, mastered
Mill's Mess, invented a new pattern or set a new record in seven-ring
endurance juggling. Juggling also attracts students and intellectuals,
notably mathematicians, computer programmers and engineers. Such
people love the challenge of notating their own achievements and
understanding the notations of others. There's a thing called Site
Swap, which magically enables a juggler to describe any juggling
pattern in a series of simple numbers. I understood it once, but
I also almost once understood a page of Dawkins'
Brief History of Time.
I have seen epic jugglers watch other heroes
do battle with the laws of gravity in more and more complex patterns.
They closely observe the mesmerising knots of aerial Celtic scrollwork
and then analyse, transcribe and COPY them. Jugglers are pretty
clever people! It is not surprising, then that this branch of Circus
Skills should be the one that generates the most books, journals
and websites. It is sometimes argued that recreational juggling
is totally removed from the Circus. They barely have a common ancestry.
Recreational jugglers rarely visit the Circus, and Circus people
only grudgingly acknowledge the skills of the dedicated juggler.
There is some truth in this, but a recent event inspires me to believe
that the divorce is not absolute.
The 1999 Australian Circus Festival was combined
with celebrations of the Fruit Flies' twentieth anniversary, and
a highlight was a full programme presented by `Fruities' graduates.
This took place under their own Big Top, before a full house comprising
a mixture of Festival patrons - both performers and recreational
circus enthusiasts - and a home crowd of the Albury-Wodonga general
public. The performances were outstanding, but only one act received
a standing ovation. It was Earl Shatford, the juggler who had grown
up through the Fruit Flies, and who now works North American cruise
liners. His act was slick, cabaret style, with courageous moves
brilliantly executed. He had returned to his home town to devote
some months training a new generation of children at the Fruit Flies'
Circus School. People like Earl are the links between
the disparate elements that make up Circus today.
Articles like those in this journal and the new
generation of Circus magazines will also provide such links. Needed
now are good books, websites and features on Circus in journals
devoted to sport, arts, recreation, tourism, community development,
self-improvement and health. When a wealth of such material has
reached the public, then the wider world may come to realise that
Circus is a largely untapped field of study. Minds as well as bodies
will be dedicated to Circus arts, and that tired journalistic put-down
of our endeavours -`just clowning around' may finally be laid to
rest.
Physical education
I have a theory, which I shall develop elsewhere,
that sport is far too adult a concept for children, and far too
childish for adults. Organised sport is a development only of the
last century or so, and is today unashamedly linked with commerce.
(Can anyone explain the difference between Globalisation and Americanisation?)
I have argued in New Circus that almost all
sports are martial in nature. Most are confrontational, and consist
of propelling a missile (ball), either by dominant hand or foot,
or with a propulsive device (bat) as fast, or as cunningly as possible
at a target. This is ballistics. This is imitating war. It is ironic
that the latest European war started by imitating a game. The bombardment
of Serbia
was rightly described as the Nintendo War. Actual misery was translated
to the TV audience as virtual reality. We could almost hear an electronic
`Ta-Daa!' as the puff of smoke erupted dead centre on the screen,
and the occasional Pacman-like gurgly `Oops!' when we zapped an
embassy or a column of refugees. How much longer will our society
tolerate the creation of teams, codes and cultures before our very
eyes, for the blatant purpose of selling fizz, hamburgers and scarves?
Success of the Sports Industry is predicated on our willingness
to revert to tribal hostility. Adoration of the warrior, ritualisation
of combat, the `tragedy' of defeat, the ecstasy of victory - all
were described by Homer twenty-seven centuries ago. One would have
hoped that description of war would begin to lessen our appetite
for it, but it seems that the Iliad may be required reading for
those advertising gurus whose influence clearly dominates contemporary
sport.
In the search for an alternative, we should consider
Circus as the basis of a reformed curriculum for physical development.
Those of us active in teaching Circus Skills to young people already
have an understanding of the benefits. We may be standing too close
to realise what a comprehensive range of skills is provided in the
totality of Circus training.
Strength is achieved, not by action with chromed
steel weights, but by the much more subtle interaction with one's
own, or another's body weight. There is a current passion for de-construction
with everything. In education it is manifested in dreadful expressions
such as `competencies' , `outcomes' and `behaviours'. In the world
of physical training, now called `fitness', you see it in the range
of exercises, the expensive gadgets in the gym, and the appropriate
shoes and clothes you need to wear in order to service each muscle
group, each action, each aerobic and anaerobic nicety. Most dogs
and cats are fitter than most humans I know, and I rarely see them
decked out in the logos clutching the plastic water in the shining
gym.
Flexibility is a dirty word in Aerobics and in the
primary school. In Aerobics, you may bend (carefully), you may step
(gently), you may sweat (fashionably), but you may never twist your
spine. If you want to see yourself in another mirror, you
never twist round, you do a three-point turn. As a child, you may
do what you like on the public park's monkey bars (if there any
left), you can do forward rolls on your bed, and push up to a bendback
on the beach, but NOT AT SCHOOL. Teachers are paranoid about the
possibility of injury and ensuing litigation. You may protect the
staff from lawyers, protect the little children from injury, but
what are we doing to the species? The child who has a good rolling
relationship with the ground will not become the parent who falls
down the stairs or the sixty-year-old who breaks a hip at the first
fall.
Circus acrobats, especially aerialists and contortionists,
are rarely the victims of self-imposed strains or injuries. Their
training is progressive, and they usually maintain strength and
flexibility well into old age. We are awaiting any evidence that
super-flexibility of the spine does any damage. Reaction speed and
good peripheral vision are essential for survival on the road. Even
that eminent authority Arnold Schwarzenegger advised a young would-be
boxer to `learn to juggle' to improve the arnbiant vision needed
for that `sport'. I have already hinted at the intellectual challenges
inherent in Juggling. Physically, it is so much more sophisticated
than any other ball skills. It is creative, it is infinitely complex,
it is generous rather than aggressive, and, as advocates always
explain, it uses both sides of the brain - whatever that means.
Strength, flexibility, speed and reaction are
some of the elements of any programme of physical development. Add
to these the qualities of fun, and measurable progress, and it is
clearly time to consider seriously what Circus training offers Physical
Education.
Social education
Just as I prefer Cooperation policy to Competition
policy, I would prefer a system of training based on Integration
rather than De-construction. Circus strength and fitness is based
on what each person needs. It results in a body that can work with
rather than against another; a person who can support, not one who
would defeat another. It all seems so much more civilised.
It is still easier to gather a crowd to watch
a fight rather than a recital. It may be easier, but it is essentially
regressive and calling on our primitive selves. What, then does
it tell our children when we turn up every Saturday morning, shouting
and hollering, urging them to defeat someone else's child? How much
more progressive is the ritual of performance, where parents come
to see, and celebrate what their child can produce of him/herself,
not in an arena where they can become a loser, or, worse, a winner
over their young peers. In performing arts, whether of Drama, Music,
Dance or Circus, the child is learning so much about form, history,
culture (how we do things), and about responsibility, commitment,
perfectibility, and about the human quality of generosity in performance.
Most of us remember all our lives those occasions when we took part
in school plays. The experience goes very deep indeed, and it is
a shameful omission of teachers if they do not provide opportunities
for this wonderful effect. The School Circus, once the teachers
have the confidence to produce it, can combine the benefits of Musical,
Dramatic, Dance and Sports display, with added opportunity for the
school to create an original Visual Arts extravaganza.
The history and actuality of Circus is a model
of Multi-Culturalism and Co-Existence. It is a universal art form
with an ancient and diverse pedigree. To study its history and contemporary
development is to see the world in microcosm, its variety, its challenges,
and its ever-changing view of itself. Circus offers scope for debate
on issues such as inter-species relationships, race, high-art/low-art,
risk, child exploitation, management, truth in advertising, and
much more.
In Social Studies, Circus is both metaphor and
reality.
Emotional development
The history of Circus is full of inspiring role
models for young minds. Instead of accepting transitory pop idols
and hyped sports performers, children may be inspired by individuals
like Con Colleano,
Coco, Lilian Leitzel, or contemporary artists who
dedicate themselves, like explorers, mystics or scientists, to taking
the human
race to places it has never been. That is the essence of Recreational
Circus. It is to go where one has never
been. It is to flirt with the impossible. It is to
dream, then to make it a reality.
Many of the elements of Circus are archetypal in
a Jungian sense, meaning that they are written into our individual
emotional code. We contemplate flight, and achieve it. Circus performers
confront our traumatic bugaboos of fire, sharp blades, falling,
bondage, snakes and wild beasts. They face them, and they survive.
We face them vicariously when we go to the Circus. We ourselves
may float over air when we learn to walk a tight rope. We can become
gigantic on stilts. We can apparently defy the laws of physics,
when we juggle or ride unicycles.
Children must dream. In their Circus, they live their
dreams.
Children must also take risks. That is what childhood
is for. That's how you learn.
Children need to touch people. They need to be able
to physically trust themselves and other people.
Children must also show off. Children should be seen
and heard. Through performance, they learn to show off appropriately.
They will be noticed, they will be applauded.
The child who successfully passes through all these
things - Dreams, Risk, Trust and Showing Off - as a child has a
better chance to emerge as a normal teenager and a productive, loving
adult.
So, why not Circus in Schools? What is preventing
it?
The informal survey of artists at the 1999 National
Circus Festival asked this very question. If there had been one
consistent answer, the path would be clear; but, no, there was different
answer from almost every respondent. Some answers were staggeringly
simple. It's too marginal - too small a part of people's lives.
It's too much fun. School will spoil it (these two from children).
There aren't enough long words involved. It's your obsession, it's
too silly... Others considered logistics like an unachievable teacher/student
ratio, or insurance premiums. Some compared it with other school
subjects, pointing out the lack of resources, accreditations, and
lack of career path for teachers or students. There's no exemplary
model of success, no identifiable qualified spokesperson without
an obvious vested interest. Several artists believed there are too
many prejudices against Circus in the conservative minds of the
average teacher - `gypsies, freaks, animals, clowns'. We are
dealing with people who live by cliches (`this School's a Circus
already, Ho Ho Ho!')
Australia loves sport. If you don’t make it
as a sportsman/woman, you can always go in for sports administration,
sports medicine, sports psychology, sponsorship, fitness, sports
marketing etc etc. Who ever heard of a career in the Circus?
Conclusion
I once spent a day introducing Circus Skills to third-year
Phys Ed students. It was a huge success. I suggested to the Head
of Department that here was evidence that she should consider adding
Circus to the training curriculum. She laughed. She said, `You'll
have to join the queue' `What queue? 'Oh, you know,
all the other weird sports - wrestling, rock climbing, bootscooting.'
We are faced with several paradoxes.
Circus performance thrives on apparent impossibilities
and great risk. Yet, in training, and in Circus in Education, the
work is clearly progressive, based on clearly defined achievements
(competencies!). In performance, the limits are known, the performer
will be safe. This contrasts with sport in which every action invites
an unequal and opposite reaction, with various attendant hammies,
groins, corkies and observations of the blood rule.
Yet they will say that Circus is dangerous.
Circus was the first performing art form to be taken
across Australia. It remains one of the most popular and one
which, contrary to popular opinion, is growing. Overseas, the New
Circus companies such as Circus Oz, Ra Ra Zoo, Legs on the Wall,
Strange Fruit, Flying Fruit Flies and others have earned
Australia
a reputation for being in the vanguard of the new movement of Physical
Theatre. Australian theatre, music and dance would envy this reputation.
Yet the taste-makers of
Australia would totally dismiss the Traditional Circus
as an art-form, and would quickly denigrate our home-grown culture
at the first sighting of the Corporate Cirque du Soleil.
Traditional Circus is, to this writer, an exemplary
model of Arts Management. When considering the mountain of tasks
involved in every move - marketing, packing, freight, tent erection
and maintenance, animal husbandry and grazing, insurance, safety
regulations, contracts, training, on the road repairs, education
of children, compliance with municipal by-laws, and so on - one
may look in vain for the office full of administrators. The CEO
of this considerable undertaking is quite likely to be in the ring,
in full make up, as a clown.
Yet, Circus is made the metaphor for chaos.
Yet, arts funding goes to companies who may lay
off all their artists for months at a time, maintaining a squad
of professional submitters. Funding is not the issue, except that
along with the imprimatur of funding goes the aura of quality assurance.
The perceived low status of Circus in our community,
our press, and our intelligentsia makes it an uphill struggle to
gain acceptance in schools. Ultimately, the answer is in perceptions.
Australia is still a young enough country for us
to make a difference. Only in Canada are opportunities greater for
Circus in Schools. Those who would like to see Circus Arts closer
to the mainstream of our culture, and Circus Education achieve a
real presence in schools, must work to alter the traditional misconceptions.
However, this must be done with caution, with respect, remembering
that Circus thrives on mystery and hyperbole, and would be reduced
if all its processes were laid open to the public gaze.
The great Hungarian magician Korari used to end his
show with the words, `If you have enjoyed my show, please tell your
friends. If you have not, please tell me, and I promise I'll tell
no-one. Now, give me a big applause please.' With Kovari, one always
felt very special, as if one was a privileged friend. Perhaps that
is how it must be if we are to effect the spread of Recreational
Circus, especially in schools. We must look for away in which each
person we speak to, each reader we write for, feels they have a
special backstage pass. They must trust us that if they come backstage
with their friends they will not be embarrassed, but will be welcomed,
will be enlightened, will be amazed and will be safe. More than
that, they will be a better person for the experience.
Reg Bolton's Choice of Twelve Interesting Circus
Books
AUSTRALIA
Spangles and Circus - The Circus in
Australia
by Mark St Leon
Women's Circus - Leaping off the Edge
by The Women's Circus
UK
A Seat at the Circus
by Antony Hippisley Coxe
A History of the Circus
by George Speaight
TECHNIQUES
Circus Techniques
by Hovey Burgess Circus in a Suitcase by Reg
Bolton
INSPIRATIONS
On the High Wire
by Philippe Petit
Big Apple Circus
by Peter Angelo Simon
The Pickle Family Circus
by Terry Lorant & Jon Carroll
New Circus
by Reg Bolton
FICTION
Love, Let Me Not Hunger
by Paul Gallico
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Reg Bolton's Choices of Circus Journals Worth Subscribing
to -
Spectacle
PO Box 1420
Edison, New Jersey, 08818-1420 USA
circusarts@AOL.com
Plane Circus
Circus Verlag
Am Latourshof 6
D-41542 Dortnagen
Germany
http://www.circus-verlag.de
Le Monde du cirque
25 Bd de Port Royal, 75013 Paris
France
King Pole
Kiln Hill House
Taylors lane, Pilling
Lancs, England PR3 6AB
KingPole.Circus@btinternet.com
Kascade
Schinbergstr. 92
D-65199 Wiesbaden.
Germany
kaskade@compuserve.com
The Catch
Moorledge Farm Cottage,
Knowle Hill
Chew Magna,
Bristol BS 18 8TL
On One Wheel
PO Box 40534
Redford, Michigan 48240 USA
http://www.unicycling.org/usa/
Juggle
PO Box 218, Montague
MA 01351, USA
http://www. jugglemagazine.com
Pro-circus
PO Box 1002
Springwood, QLD 4127,
Australia
Ozjuggle
PO Box 361
Northcote, Victoria 3070, Australia
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