... on your comment at the end of the post that follows this one -- "The Impresario Enters"
Thanks for your contribution.
I was about as awed by Cirque du Soleil in the beginning as you are now. It’s future will be most interesting to follow. Will the public, already suggested, tire of the artsy allusions to dance and theatre? Perhaps they will not, as long as the show gives them a sufficient number of A grade World class acts.
In the big picture of circus performance history, I see our having lived through five epochs:
1. 1770: The one ring circus as invented by Philip Astley in England.
2. 1881: The three ring circus of Barnum & Bailey in America.
3. 1919: The Russian one-ring circus elevated into a quasi-ballet, without ballet, which would significantly influence what came about from Cirque du Soliel, whose founding artistic director acknowledged that much.
4. 1938: John Ringling North’s brilliant transformation of the three ring circus with unified costume design and interlocking production numbers.
5. 1984: Cirque du Soleil’s transformation of the one ring circus into a new kind of border line circus. There can be no doubt its impact on public perceptions
Paul Binder, in my view, upgraded the art and showmanship of the one ring format – as had Louis Stern and Irving J. Polack before him in the mid-thirties with their Polack Bros. Circus. A pity Paul is gone.
Irvin Feld, you might argue (not I, exactly) glorified the format of John Ringling North, to which he was slavishly devoted. I believe his son Kenneth has been more inventive. Sometimes, perhaps too much for his own good.
Will true circus (animals, acrobats, clowns) fade out completely?. I doubt it. Will they ever make a comeback? For that to happen, I believe we would need a big spectacular statement from the likes of a Kenneth Feld with vast resources, combined with a public so fed up with woke culture, that going to a traditional big top will be one way of rediscovering and reclaiming lost traditions of enduring value. This could very well happen, but it might not be during our time.
Wait to see what the Feld of Felds does, if he follows through on his promise to revive Ringling.
6 comments:
I like traditional circus better, myself, but I'm 65 and that's the circus that got my blood running initially. But, no business, unless it's producing pharmaceuticals or selling long term nursing home care, can be viable with my age demographic. Cirque will wear itself out - maybe it's already doing that.
The problem is, that we're going into the second generation that has no memory of circus day being something to look forward to. Today's parents are way less likely to take their kids to a circus than they were. I don't think it's the case in Europe, where there are dozens and dozens of traditional shows of every size.
Jesus, Dave, you talk about Louie Stern as though his shows are relevant. At least keep the conversation to the last decade or two. Leave the geriatric nostalgia for the other blog. The topic is what will survive into the future. But, if anyone has a chance to put out a new show with pizazz, it's the Felds, as long as they aren't planning another cirque copy.
Animals are not coming back. Wild animals definitely not. You might be too cocooned to follow the pulse of public opinion, but I follow it closely in all issues concerning animals. It's almost shocking to see footage of East European shows that still have bears. I thought those had gone by the wayside as they have in just about every country on earth, apart from endangered animal eating China.
I was looking at some of the competitors for last year's 'Online Circus Festival' = the Covid edition. There are still a lot of very good acts - all Ringling quality in Europe, so there must be a market for performers there. I don't know how performers cobble together a living over here. You have to be able to pay the bills or you just quit performing when a Walmart cashier earns more. But, if there was a venue for acts here, Europe will still be the source of the good stuff.
Online Circus Festival competitors https://onlinecircusfestival.com/top100-2020/
Okay, Anon -- how's that for your nickname? With Louie Stern, he was relevant only to my designating, in my humble opinion, the five epochs of circus performance art stretching back to founder Philip Astley. He was a major player in the back to one-ring movement, as were Binder and Laliberte.
I am well aware of a wide spread public rejection of wild animal acts over here. Elephants parading around the track, just to parade? The future is forever changing and can fool us. You say the flame of Cirque may be fading out. What then? ground acts, old vaudeville style?
"Geriatric nostalgia" --- very funny, Anon!
I know you don't like anti-paralyasis devices but check THIS out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUDlwsNxsWg
Okay, AP (Anti-Paralysis), I checked out the video, all of it. Largely impotent. Very Soviet, the work of Lenin and his friend, minister of education Lunacharsky, who set out to make the circus a more humane place. Circus art is famed and respected for RISK and SKILL. Aside from a solid handstand on the head of another walking up the ladder, most all else is slow, wire protected and lacking in pace. Nice and interesting at best. If this impresses you, yes, though perhaps you have limited experience. I'll say this, better music and costuming would have helped.
In real life, mountain climbers take risks. In real life astronauts take risks. But at the circus, known for thrills and spills, performers hook themselves to lifelines? At one point, there were so many wires, I almost laughed. Yes, I admire their ambitions and we have to consider that they may have been taught to use lifelines, I see the language is Russian. I doubt that Putin would would insist on such a practice. But it is entrenched in Soviet tradition. Nonetheless, this does not turn tepid to compelling.
C+ grade.
Where did you come in, from a school, a ballet or theatre troupe, Circus Talk magazine?
In real life mountain climbers and astronauts don't climb mountains twice a day for months at a time. You almost laughed? How precious. There isn't a single American act with that level of skill working today or that gets that type of audience response., and I am extremely experienced, having performed all over the world doing animal and aerial acts vs your experience as a prop boy who got to do a walkaround in a borrowed clown costume? Your naivete at what constitutes skill is evident when you tout Winnie Concello, working 10ft above a flying net as the high art. Do you even personally know a single performer?
AP,
Sorry about the illusion to laughter. I can see it SEEMING out of place. In fact at one point there were so many wires in near cris-crossing patterns as to look like a kind of satire on lifeline overkill, that I felt an odd giggle. I did say I admired their ambitions.
I was never a prop boy at Wallace Bros. I began as an usher and was offered the clown gig when another clown was fired for getting too cozy with a girl under the seats.
Winnie Concello? Me thinks you mean Winnie Colleano, above a net? If so, okay with me, just like a flying return act, which I would NEVER watch without one.
No, I do not know a single performer, because, as I grew older, I came to believe I could not be objective reviewing the work of someone I was a friend to, or on friendly terms with. Inspired partly by the esteemed New York theatre critic, Brooks Atkinson stating he tried to avoid all association with theatre people whose work he might be reviewing. Instantly, it made ethical sense to me.
Might you be the one who once stated in CR that only a performer is qualified to review another performer? Just wondering.
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