European Circus History Conference in Londen

European Circus History Conference

Van vrijdag 28 februari tot en met zondag 2 maart vond in Londen, de geboorteplaats van het klassieke circus, de allereerste European Circus History Conference plaats. Artistiek leider Harm, ook deskundige op het gebied van circusgeschiedenis, was één van de medeorganisatoren van dit bijzondere evenement. Hij schreef het volgende verslag:

In de Londense wijk Kennington, waar de jonge Charlie Chaplin ooit de zwaarte van het leven leerde kennen, verzamelden circuswetenschappers uit heel Europa zich begin maart voor een uniek evenement: de eerste European Circus History Conference. Drie dagen lang kwamen academici en amateurhistorici samen in het voormalige armenhuis waar Chaplin zijn kindertijd doorbracht en waar nu een cinemamuseum is gevestigd. Het thema van de conferentie, de vroege ontwikkeling van circus in Europa, onthulde een onverwacht veelzijdige geschiedenis waarin circus alles behalve los staat van andere podiumkunsten. Zoals een van de sprekers treffend opmerkte: “Ik doe nu veertig jaar onderzoek naar de geschiedenis van het circus, en iedere tien jaar kantelt mijn perspectief compleet.”

Twee thema’s liepen als rode draad door de bijdragen: de nauwe vermenging van circus en theater, en nieuw onderzoek naar ondergerepresenteerde artiesten. Onderzoekers benadrukten dat een circus dat puur draait om fysieke vaardigheden eerder een uitzondering is dan de regel. Zo waren er de hippodrama’s uit de 18e en 19e eeuw, waarin paarden centraal stonden – soms in symbolische opvoeringen van werken als Lord Byron’s Mazeppa, soms letterlijk als Romeo en Julia. Ook de parkourachtige achtervolgingsscènes uit 19e-eeuwse pantomimes, de dadaïstische clownsacts uit de vroege 20e eeuw, en de propagandistische dierenacts uit de Sovjettijd tonen hoe circus en theater steeds weer in elkaar overvloeien. Waar het ene ophoudt en het andere begint, is zelden duidelijk.

Daarnaast viel op dat er meer ruimte komt voor stemmen die eerder vergeten dreigden te worden in de geschiedschrijving. Professor Vanessa Toulmin (University of Sheffield) presenteerde haar onderzoek naar Patty Astley, die samen met Philip Astley, alom geroemd als ‘de vader van het circus’, vorm gaf aan de allereerste circusoptredens, maar die tot nu toe vooral een voetnoot vormde in de biografieën van haar partner. Professor Kornélia Deres (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest) onderzocht vrouwelijke circus- en menageriedirecteuren (een soort reizende dierentuin) in het Budapest van de vroeg-achttiende eeuw. Professor Leith Davis (Simon Fraser University, CA) onderzocht de carrière van Sarah L’Africaine, een van de eerste bekende artiesten van kleur in het Europese circus. Haar verhaal laat zien hoe artiesten van kleur zich staande hielden  in een tijdperk waarin raciale stereotyperingen de norm waren. Hoewel deze geschiedenissen vaak pijnlijk waren, wierpen ze ook een nieuw licht op artiesten die wegbereiders waren voor de latere emancipatiestrijd.

Hoogtepunt van de conferentie was het onderzoek van de Hong Kongs-Britse performer Eelyn Lee en professor Mary Chapman (University of British Columbia), die een persoonlijke en zoektocht ondernamen naar een groep Chinese goochelaars die uitmondde in zowel een ontroerende performance als wetenschappelijke publicatie.

Bij circus als serieuze kunstvorm hoort niet alleen serieuze kunstkritiek, maar ook een nieuw begrip van haar geschiedenis. In dat opzicht is deze eerste conferentie meer dan geslaagd. Op dit moment vinden de voorbereiden gesprekken plaats voor een tweede editie, die waarschijnlijk in 2027 in Kopenhagen zal plaatsvinden.

by circusstudio

Staat van het Circus

Staat van het Circus

Ieder jaar wordt een vooraanstaande maker uitgenodigd om te reflecteren op de ontwikkelingen in het circusveld. Dit jaar sprak Maartje Bonarius de De Staat van het Circus tijdens hedendaags circusfestival This Is Not A Circus in Theater Bellevue.

Lees hier de recensies in Het Parool, de Volkskrant en NRC Handelsblad.

Maartje Bonarius' speach "State of the Circus":

Twenty years ago, I did my very first salto. I saw other kids doing somersaults and thought, I want to do that too. So I stepped on the trampoline, and started to jump, higher and higher, I prepared myself and at the hightest point I brought my knees up to my head as hard as I could. BAM. Blood everywhere. Ok, it was just a nosebleed. But still, my second summersault, I made at circus school.

I graduated ten years ago, in one of the first batches of circus alumni in The Netherlands. Like my classmates, I moved abroad, in my case France. In The Netherlands there was no infrastructure, no studio to rehearse, no support, you had to figure everything out for yourself. I remember I was In a suburb of Toulouse, where I saw an incredibly abstract and frankly, weird circus performance. But more amazing than what happened on stage, was the fact was that all these different people from completely different backgrounds came together to see this very strange show, and that afterwards everyone turned to their neighbour and started talking about what they had seen. This, the way these very different people were touched and talked to eachother through circus was what I wanted for The Netherlands, and so I came back.

And I wasn't the only one. Right here in this room are an awful lot of Dutch circus pioneers. We all stepped onto the mat in our own way and, without much experience, just jumped, tried to do our own somersault, and went for it - because we all share similar dreams for Dutch circus.

Today I’ve been asked to say a few words about where we stand as Dutch circus field. To see how things are going, personally I find it useful to look back at where we were five or ten years ago. And looking back now, I think we can be very proud of ourselves. Look where we are! All those things we wanted then as a sector: chances to perform, recognition from funding bodies, from the rest of the cultural sector, support… it's here now.

Time for new and further leaps. But where our first somersaults only had one goal: not to fall flat on our faces (no nosebleeds), we now have a bit more space to think about exactly how we jump, which way to turn, and how to land.

And I feel we have a lot to gain, starting with the place we jump from. As Ben mentioned last year, we don't really use classical circus as our base. But I think that classical circus has a lot more to offer us than fancy tricks. For example, I believe we could draw inspiration from how performers in the classical circus continue to perform into old age as their bodies change. And did you know that it was female performers from the classical circus who were at the forefront of the fight for emancipation and voting rights a century ago? They earned their own money and were celebrated for their strength and their achievements. In this regard, it is sad to note that not only the classical circus, but also the contemporary field still have a lot of work to do some 100 years on. We, as women, still have much to gain when it comes to how often and in what roles we appear on stage.

And we all know how much work still needs to be done when it comes to other forms of diversity.

he new generations of artists graduating from circus schools no longer have to start their jump all the way down on the cold, hard ground. There is money, there are talent development programmes, there are structures: trampolines. Nice ones, to give you a good take-off. Talents are even starting to be able to choose: which trampoline is fancier, more expensive, which will allow me to jump even higher? Yet still I wonder. Are those shiny trampolines really that sturdy, or do they only last one year before you have to fend for yourself?

Thanks to these new facilities, more and more circus performers jump higher and earn their applause; they are seen. But the danger is that we exclude those who are still trying without a trampoline and then congratulate ourselves on our ability to chose the ‘right’ new talents. And what happens to those who stumble, who need more time, or land on their necks? Does everybody get a fair chance to jump? Where are the performers with different bodytypes? What do we need to work sustainably? These are the questions we should be asking ourselves.

And, more importantly, where do we put those trampolines? Only in theatres, because that makes us a recognised art form, while only 15% of Dutch people ever go to the theatre. Or are the most relevant places to perform somewhere else. On the streets, for instance, on the squares in the outskirts of town where the classical circus has always come?

You know, I used to think that circus was about the superhuman, the realisation of 'human potential', but to me the most beautiful circus is about failure. That you try something over and over again, that you doubt whether it will succeed: can this body really do that? That’s what makes it about being human. This is what moves me as an artist. The audience rarely thinks about it, but 90% of being a circus artist is failure: falling down, trying again. It’s the only way to learn new tricks. Performing with your body, depending on your body is so essential to being a circus artist, but what if your body fails? What are you left with? And can we call that circus too?

In recent years, I’ve experienced first-hand what it is like to fail. I got a nervous system disorder and can never make a real summersault again. This has forced me to express myself in a different way. I am not a natural speaker at all: I belong up there in the air. Circus is my language. And now here I am in front of you, selling the popcorn, stammering my own way through a verbal performance. Look at me fail. And yet still continue.

Of course we need successes, examples, performances that everyone loves, to show people how amazing circus can be. But the failures are at least as important if we really want to move forward. And it is precisely then that we need people to catch us, who are ready and willing, who help us up, instead of walking away or looking to the other person who does succeed. We have to dare to take time for real development, and take the audience with us on that journey.

This is the time to look at how we move forward. Now. Before we stabilise as a sector, while we still have the chance to guide the way our roots grow. Around me, I see everyone running. The classical circuses are running to stay afloat. The contemporary ones for recognition from the arts funds. In the meantime, we seem to have left the youth circuses and street theatre behind. It seems as if they don't matter, when we desperately need them to help us create a more diverse circus. To reach out to everyone. To have places where you can safely fall flat on your face, get up again and use that to grow.

The thing is, there aren't that many of us. We can all fit into a small theatre. We don’t need to be competitors. The Netherlands is big enough, just look at how many theatre companies exist. I want to invite everyone here to choose to stop running and build the big-top together, to include those who couldn't keep up. The youth circuses, the self-taught, the organisations without subsidies, the misfits among us. If circus is a place where outsiders feel at home, surely, we as an artform can be an outsider in the arts world. Let’s invest in building up our relationships with each other, in truly sustainable ways of building up the sector, let’s cherish what’s already there and what was already there, and let’s expect the same from new generations of artists. What else can we do aside from creating even more wonderful artistic movement.

And above all, let's not look back ten years from now and wonder how everything ended up the way it always was. When I look back ten years from now, I hope it won't be the somersaults that stand out, but how sustainable Dutch circus has become, how diverse, and the knowledge that we will have accomplished that together.

by Florentine