Circus has changed a lot in the past thirty or forty years. I can remember three big circuses touring England when I was a child and I saw Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey’s Three Ring Circus in New York and Circus Knie in Zurich. But a travelling circus was a cumbersome beast, top heavy and unsustainable. By the end of the last century they had all but disappeared with a few exceptions, namely Cirque du Soleil – but even they had serious problems a few years back. You can lose the elephants and tigers and the Big Tops but you can’t kill the spirit of circus.
Circus performing was always a very closed shop. Acts and skills were handed down through families and nomadic circus folk existed in a separate world, living in caravans and wiping mud and sawdust off their boots and glittering costumes. But with the demise of the big touring shows a new generation of performers emerged, circus schools were established and the remit of a circus act became much broader and very different. The old skills still existed but they were presented in a new exciting and original manner without a sequin or ostrich feather in sight. So widespread was/is this revival that there are probably more circus artists now than there were fifty years ago and they are all young and imaginative with few, if any, having previously any connection with circus – and are certainly not looking over their shoulders. The show we saw last night, the first day of Circusstad, demonstrated this perfectly.
Day 1
The Australian Circa Contemporary Circus presented their Humans 2.0 show at Theater Rotterdam to a packed and enthusiastic audience who were probably as tired as the performers after watching the high-voltage, non-stop action for over an hour. The five girls and five boys performed amazing acrobatic feats and deeds of incredible strength in a show so skilfully choreographed that at times one could easily have been watching the contemporary dance company Scapino whose home is the same theatre.
Described as the “rock stars of the circus world” Circa has played in over forty-five countries to nearly two million people – each of whom I guarantee would have held the breath for longer than was medically safe. There was a lot going on with different couples or groups doing different routines all at the same time – a bit like the three ring circus. The problem with that is that when you are watching one thing, you are missing another. The pace of the show was unrelenting, punctuated only by a couple of solo turns on ropes. The group’s speciality was standing on shoulders and manoeuvring while doing so. Some of the sequences defied gravity and the laws of balance and unlike traditional circuses, none of them were heralded by a roll on the drums. To an excellent synthesizer generated soundscape they were performed very matter-of-factly, seamlessly melding into the performance as a whole.
Circa’s Humans 2.0 is a tour de force the like of which you will not see elsewhere. Spectacular though it was, I suspect there were many bits which were for tumbling and acrobatic aficionados only, so subtlety were they presented. Brilliant.
Day 2
CIRC’OLÉ also demonstrates the diversity of modern circus. Possibly less of a circus act in the old sense of the word, more of a cabaret or music hall ‘spesh’ – a speciality act.
Performed in Opticum, a beautiful mini circus tent on the Schouwburgplein, Paul Morocco and Marcial Heredia’s act revolves around their Spanish guitars and flamenco music intertwined with a bit of juggling from Mr Morocco and a lot of comedy from both of them. In a circus context I guess they would count as clowns. This was a fairly rough and ready show with more sophisticated and polished contributions from Diane Renée Rodriguez who performed a spectacular boleadoras act – that’s the one usually performed by Argentinian gauchos stamping their feet while twirling weighted cords which act as percussion instruments on a hard floor. Ms Rodriguez also did an excellent trapeze act which worked well despite the small playing area and lack of height. There was a lot of audience participation – some people drawing a very short straw and having to get up and dance – and we were all encouraged to clap along with the flamenco and shout the occasional olé. This was a fairly short show, not much more than half an hour, but full of action and good humour. I would like to have heard a bit more serious flamenco but maybe they were inhibited by all the flash-bangs and other effects attached to their guitars. An enjoyable enough event although the heat in the small canvas covered structure during the two-day heat wave bordered on the overpowering.
DAY 3
The Circusstad Gala is the high spot of the Festival and last night at the Nieuwe Luxor Theater in the shadow of Rotterdam’s iconic Erasmus Bridge was a special occasion. Hosted by a very suave Menno Van Dyke, the Festival’s director, we were presented with about a dozen acts most of which had their own gigs on other days and at other venues during the Festival.
First up was a real novelty act, the like of which I have not seen before. The performance started quite slowly and the six acrobatics quite sedate but when you realised that the average age of the group was about sixty it threw a new light on the proceedings. With hardly a kilo of fat between them they were able to perform feats which would have been a struggle for those of half their age.
Another act I have not seen before was Japanese Shu Takada. Shu won the America’s Got Talent TV show and has also won the Yo-Yo world championship on more than one occasion. His skills and presentation were superb but some of it was so intricate one wondered how much of it could be seen from the back row of such a large venue.
Next up was the Swiss Compagnia Baccalà who featured on the cover of this month’s ArtsTalk Colour Supplement. We are seeing their solo show on Saturday at the Oude Luxor theatre, so that will be reviewed later. A couple of the acts tonight we had already seen and reviewed (see above) – Circa’s Humans 2.0 and Circ’Olé. Their act was a bit different tonight without the girl but with the addition of a third guitarist. I actually preferred this version to the one we saw in the Opticum.
The first half concluded with an amazing trapeze/rope ladder act by Lisa Rinne, a graduate of Fontys Circus in Tilburg. The rope ladder act was spectacular enough but her work of the trapeze was amazing – doing a backward somersault on a swinging trapeze must be quite tricky. The other two acts in the second half were Jimmy Gonzales who juggled with a lump of clay and Tay Lane and Laura Stokes who had unusual act. They were attached by the hair to each end of a rope that went over a pulley so as one of them went up, the other went down. This was spell-binding act to one of the Lachrymosas, especially the second part where they were three meters off the ground. For a finale they flung of their flowing dresses and hung there naked. Circa returned to provide the final performance of a spectacular evening.
DAY 4
For me, beyond doubt, the best show I saw was Pss Pss by the Swiss Compagnia Baccalà at the Nieuwe Luxor Theater last night. The performance possessed all the ingredients of great circus and much more besides. The two characters created by Simone Fassari and Camilla Pessi epitomise clowning at its very best. They are innocents abroad, strangers in a strange land full of wonder and mystery where every aspect presents a new challenge. They are like characters from an old silent movie that pull through despite the obstacles thrown in their way. But behind the make-up and costumes there are two performers who seem to have mastered every circus skill, not to mention the musical ones. They have performed over 1000 times in fifty-three countries and have accumulated fifteen prestigious international awards from around the world. Their intricate multi-layered routines leave you not knowing whether to gasp or laugh. Everything they do, whether it be acrobatics, juggling or on the trapeze is conditioned by humour and, of course, its bedfellow, pathos. If you were not lucky enough to see Compagnia Baccalà in Rotterdam there are several videos available on YouTube – I particularly like the one on the railway station and the one in Paris. The hour-long Pss Pss seemed barely adequate and I’m sure, like me, the audience would have been happy to watch them all night. It is impossible not to love Compagnia Baccalà and I defy anyone to try. Perfect.
Although few of the performers or acts could be faulted I do have an issue about a few of the presentations. Circus is nothing if not spectacular and to perform an act looking as though you have just walked in off the street wearing jeans or a T-shirt is not acceptable. This seems to be a particular problem with Codarts. Many of their acts seem to have a uniform of T-shirt and trousers in various non-descript pastel shades which are ill-fitting and crumpled. My earlier remarks about sequins and ostrich feathers above were not entirely facetious. When you go to a circus you expect to see larger than life, not performers wearing clothes which look as though they were slept in. What is the point of training for years to perfect an act and then presenting it in a sloppy, casual way that diminishes it?
All reviews by Michael Hasted
