Though no longer "away," I'm going to keep posting (albeit, less often) to cover my continued activities.
This semester I'm doing a Spring Project, as a dance Independent Study, which will be a short show on April 27th. As part of the course, I have to write up synopses of my journal entries from time to time. Here is the first synopsis:
Historical Context
[Based on my notes from last semester’s contextual studies class and Bim Mason’s book, Street Theatre and other outdoor performance.]
Circus has its beginnings in a variety of sources, some older than civilization. The shaman in prehistoric tribes was one who could summon supernatural forces to heal, judge, or foretell. He was also responsible for organizing rituals and entertaining. Shamans would perform sleights of hand, manipulations, or even acrobatic feats as evidence of their powers. For instance, “surgeries” might be performed by creating the illusion of reaching into a person’s stomach and pulling out figures representing evil spirits. It is also likely that the shamans themselves believed in their own conjurings. Medicine shows and magic healers can still be found throughout India and Asia.
Illusion, manipulation, and other seemingly magic acts were an important early influence on circus as entertainment – as a kind of real magic. Another, which came about especially in ancient Rome and Greece, was the martial arts display, influencing the role of circus as a display of skill and strength. The Colosseum, Circus Maximus, and other gladiatorial and chariot racing arenas were the most popular entertainments of the time. More recently, the earliest instance of the traditional circus industry was created by Philip Astley, an English veteran of the Seven Years’ war who founded “Astley’s Amphitheatre” to demonstrate equestrian skills. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was meant to recreate and embellish conflicts between American Indians and settlers, but entertaining in its displays of martial skill and violence.
With the rise and dominance of the Catholic church throughout the middle ages, other cultures and religions were repressed, and performers of the pagan circus and sideshow arts were forced to travel. What was, long before, serious ritual was transmuted into curiosities and entertainment, sometimes for royal courts and but most often for the public. Such styles of performance gained an air of outsiderness, because the performers were constantly on the move.
Perhaps another topic worth exploring is where the popular entertainments diverged from the “high arts,” since they have such common origins. This has, in my opinion, led to an association of certain performance disciplines with mindless “entertainment,” and others with “art,” when in most cases any type of performance can serve as either. A paper we read in playwriting addresses the origins of the art hierarchy, but doesn’t explore within the performing arts much. Another topic – what separates entertainers from artists, if not the crafts they use?
The history reveals much about what distinguishes circus and sideshow, and what role they may play in society. There is an appeal to something that is on the outside. The big top is built outside of town, the travelling carnival camps by the railroad. Most circus can be seen not in theatres but in the street. There is something so appealing about that, and that sense of magic and ancient ritual mustn’t be lost.
Themes
I would like this show to play on the idea of inversion. This is drawn mostly from the Carnival aspects of circus history. The Carnival was the time before Lent when all rich foods were consumed, taking different forms in different cultures (e.g., Mardi Gras). In medieval England, it would involve the placement of fools and clowns in clergy positions, as the event represented the opposite of the fasting and sacrifice of Lent. (I should look into this with more detail).
The circus is in many ways a world of inversions. Aerialists invert the normal rules of gravity, supported by the ceiling instead of the floor. Acrobats spend more time upside down than upside up. Mime is largely about replacing objects with people. Juggling is a constant switching between dancer and setting, often where everyday objects are stripped of their usual purposes and given life and personality. Classical juggling defamiliarizes the everyday object, taking a hat or cigar box (for example) away from its normal purpose and presenting it as only its characteristic motion.
The way circus and dance affect the audience is also fundamentally different from textual theatre. In a play, there is always a suspension of disbelief. This is especially true of minimalist theatre or physical theatre – the spectator must unconsciously look past the fact that she’s in a theatre watching a show and accept the setting, characters, and events presented. In circus or dance, it is the reality of what is happening that engages the audience, not the replacement of reality. I would go so far as to call this a suspension of belief: a challenge to the spectator to process and accept the events before them. Of course, these two sides are not exclusive. I hope to present, with this show, the circus as an inverted theatre.
The rise of contemporary circus is, in a way, another inversion – a reshuffling of the arts hierarchy.
