Spring Project – First journal entry

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.

Circomedia First Years' Christmas Show

The first year students at Circomedia hold a Christmas show each year, as their first performance at St. Paul's church.  This comprises final presentations of each specialization, carefully selected to ensure everyone has a chance to perform and put together in a simple cabaret style.  Two abstract movement pieces are also included, at the beginning and end of the show, utilizing mixed random and planned choreography from the material of our Creative Movement class.  The result is a kind of sampling of what is developed in three months, and a preview of where talents can grow in the coming year.

Most of the day we spent warming up and practicing our own routines.  Each of us was in at most 2-3 routines in the show, so there wasn't much to worry about.  We had a quick tech run to check the light/sound cues, then a dress run, then went out for some Jamaican food before the show started.

Warming up on the stage.

This is a group of students with performance background, each with particular pre-show traditions.  Some joined me in tongue twisters, which I did despite having no lines in the show, others seemed to fidget obsessively with their props.  A couple guys were eager to try some makeup, having an excuse to do so.  There was a great deal of cuddling on the dressing room floor, taking pictures and videos in costume.  Following the TOOP/Todd tradition at the UR, we all linked hands and passed a pulse around the circle while breathing together and saying positive things, before bringing hands in for a (silent) group cheer.  It was nice to see a piece of home come through, and though few of us were ever on stage at the same time we all got a sense of this being a group show.

Backstage, some juggling and rola bola.

And so the show began.  Each student brought three months' work out for a casual audience.  All three of the E&M class's pieces, each with three performers, were selected to be in the show.  Each was distinct and professional, devised with the very open instruction to use 'nonconventional and noncontinuous juggling,' and to use only balls, clubs, and/or rings.  This meant we could use any numbers of objects, any combinations of them, any music, any style of costume – skill was the only limit.

The couple other pieces I saw from the wings took on a new quality when lights, audience, and additional rehearsal were added.  Something about warming up in a professional space brings about a proper concentration and fresh energy to each performer.  Though I'd seen all the acts before in Friday performances, during the show itself each seemed new.  My group's piece ran much more cleanly than it had the Friday before, probably because we'd practiced it to death the previous day.  All went well, and the audience seemed to follow closely, until the last trick – a five-ring separate to the three of us, where Aiden and I each caught two and Dan caught one on his foot.  We took three tries, each time only dropping one of the five, and could hear the audience longing for it each time.  I looked to the others, realizing that this was possibly the last juggling trick I would perform at this school.  Despite the sacred "rule of threes," we took one extra try and landed the trick, to applause greater than I heard the rest of the night.  After the show, I'm told, several audience members approached Rod and Seb and complimented them on the quality of the juggling in the show.