Table of Contents
About the Artist ................................................................................................................................ 2
The Performance ............................................................................................................................. 2
Section 1: Before the Show .......................................................................................................... 3
Topic 1: Nature of Circus .............................................................................................. 3
Topic 2: History of Circus ............................................................................................. 4
Topic 3: Circus Skills ...................................................................................................... 5
Expand your Circus Vocabulary ................................................................................ 6
Section 2: After the Show ............................................................................................................. 6
Topic 1: History skills and aesthetics of clowning ............................................ 6
Topic 2: Circus Schools ................................................................................................. 6‐7
Topic 3: Running away to the Circus ...................................................................... 7
Topic 4: How Should Circus Be Performed? ........................................................ 7‐8
Questions for Students .................................................................................................................. 9
Circus Incognitus Created and performed by JAMIE ADKINS
Official Study Guide
Created by Manitoba Theatre for Young People
Written by Ellen Peterson
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About the Artist Jamie Adkins began his meteoric career by observing the street performers in San Diego’s Balboa Park; by age sixteen he felt ready to give a first performance. For the next several years he worked with partner Neil Hartmann as The Blunder Twins, performing in the park for donations and for private parties and conventions. After Hartmann headed off to Japan, Adkins continued to hone his skills and eventually migrated to San Francisco, where after ushering for a Pickle Family Circus performance, he decided to audition for a spot with the troupe. During his time with the Pickles, he taught himself slack‐rope (or, as he calls it, “the wire thing”), learning by trial and error not just to walk the wire but also to do so while juggling or doing handstands. In 1998 he joined Québec’s Cirque Éloize as the sole American member of the company for the production Excentricus. He “came into the company to replace someone for two weeks,” but ended up staying for more than 500 performances. He told reporter Wayne Harada, in an interview with the Honolulu Advertiser in 2000, “I’m a comic performer. Since the show was missing a strong clown, I kind of assumed the role.” Doing a slack‐wire solo, and participating in the juggling and acrobatic routines, he perfected his persona as a comic bumbler, Chaplinesque and clueless. His solo was “all about the discovery of the wire. I took the four years I spent learning wire – the emotions, the fear – and squeezed them all into five minutes. …It’s hard to be graceful on the slack‐wire because it’s always sliding out from under you.” Now in his mid‐thirties, Adkins will bring his skills in character‐driven comedy (and, perhaps as well, the sense of something “always sliding out from under you”) to the premiere of Circus Incognitus. Adkins will also bring the perseverance and dedication that have brought him in little more than a decade, from the streets of California to an enviable showcase role with on of Canada’s leading (and thus one of the world’s leading) circus companies. He has said, “It’s a hard life, being on stage. I think whoever you are, whatever you do, you gotta really want to do it. And I love what I’m doing. …If I can present [my skills] in a funny way, I succeed. …My strength has been the technique on wire, combined with physical theatre.” The Performance In Circus Incognitus, Adkins brings his considerable talent to bear on the story of man facing his worst fear: public speaking. Beginning with an empty stage and a single microphone, Jamie sits at his typewriter trying to create a new show. As he confronts his fears, the stage‐world begins to change around him. He juggles just about everything, walks a precarious slack wire, grapples with his own antic chair, and confronts a hat with ideas of its own.
“Adkins hasn’t reinvented juggling or clowning, he’s just made them more interesting to watch through the power of personality and grace.” – The Daily Gazette, New York “Though Mr. Adkins’ best routines draw oohs and aahs, he’s just as successful at drawing laughs.” The New York Times, New York
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Before the Show
Topic 1: Nature of Circus Talk with students about the nature of circus performance. What circus performances have students attended? What do they expect when they go to the circus? What defines the circus? What are its essential qualities?
• Particularly with young students, focus on concrete questions about circus. Must there be a ring? Must it play in a tent? Or can circus be performed on a proscenium stage (as is Circus Incognitus)? Must there be animals? Clowns? Aerialists? Music? Certain kinds of routines or costumes?
• For older students, discuss what could be called the “sociology of circus.” Why has circus been valued
at different times and in various cultures? Some discussion points:
Linda Granfield, in her book, Circus: An Album (see “History of Circus” on following page) makes the interesting point that in medieval times, most people passed their entire lives in one village or town, seeing only about one hundred people over the course of their lifetime. The arrival of itinerant circus performers was unimaginably exciting. We modern folks – who may see hundreds of people before our first birthdays – can barely understand its impact.
Equally exotic were the snippets of foreign cultures to which nineteenth‐century Americans
were exposed through the circus. Indeed, the visiting circus was the only form of entertainment available to many nineteenth‐century Americans.
In Ernest Albrecht’s The New American Circus (see “History of Circus” on following page), he
analyzes how the counterculture of the 1960s, in rejecting traditional American values, and thus the vast spectacle and conspicuous display of American circus, was attracted to the purity of the one‐ring circuses of Europe, Russia, and traditional street performers. Here, it seemed, “circus performance was no longer a display of oddities” but rather an expression of “what it meant to be human,” an embodiment of “the universal desire to transcend what are otherwise accepted as the limitations placed on the human condition.”
• Or discuss the aesthetics of circus. What should the circus be? Is it an art? Lenin, and his first
People’s Minister of Education, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, clearly thought so: they vowed to wrest the circus away from the opportunists who play to the baser tastes of the public” and restore its essence as “an academy of physical beauty and merriment.” [Quoted in Albrecht]. Interestingly, another preeminent leader of his people Zhou Enlai was also directly involved in the revival of a culturally representative art – in this case, acrobatics in China – with the similar aim of restoring its artistry by purging sensationalistic routines. Larry Pisoni, founder of the Pickle Family Circus, strikes a similar note about the importance of circus: “What I am still hoping to do with the circs is inspire within my audience a sense of the ecstatic. I try to assemble the show, engineer the performance so that by the end, the audience will have reached an ecstatic state. They will have had a great time, and they will feel good. In that way the circus can be a curative. And an affirmation of life.” (Quoted in Albrecht).
• To prepare for a discussion about circus, teachers can read Night after Night by Diana Starr Cooper
(1994), an elegantly written essay about “classical” circuses. Her analysis of the nature of circus
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follows the course of one performance by the Big Apple Circus of New York. Also very useful is A Seat at the Circus by Antony Hippisley Coxe (1980; revised edition), with much historical detail from many European performances.
Topic 2: History of Circus Learn more about the history of circus performance. This “very old human tradition” [Peter Angelo Simon] has been practiced for almost 4,500 years. And its reach has always been worldwide, with traditions of traveling performers and companies Antony Hippisley Coxe calls circus the “only truly international entertainment.”
• Background Reading: With young students use Circuses: Under the Big Top by Judith Janda Presnall (1996; 64 pages)
in the First Book series by Franklin Watts. Special circus vocabulary is highlighted throughout; good photographs and glossary. Also useful are Old Bet and the Start of the American Circus by Robert McClurg (1993; 30 pages) and The Circus Comes Home: When the Greatest Show on Earth Rode the Rails by Lois Duncan (1993; 64 pages about Barnum and Bailey). Young students will also enjoy the photographs in Granfield.
Intermediate students and older readers of all ages should enjoy Circus: An Album by Linda
Granfield (1998; 96 pages) from Dorling Kindersley.
Older students can get the best overview of the ‘new circus’ development through Ernest Albrecht’s The New American Circus (1995; 258 pages). The newly released Big Apple Circus: 25 Years by Dominique Jando includes an illuminating “Brief History of the Circus”.
Older students can also use the many photo‐stuffed histories of circus to be found in libraries,
such as Rupert Croft‐Cooke and Peter Cotes’ Circus: A World History (1976) and Marian Murray’s Circus! From Rome to Ringling (1956). For circus before the 1970s Step Right Up! The Adventure of Circus in America by LaVahn Hoh and William Rough (1990). The introductory chapters are particularly valuable for explaining how circus evolved in response to social and economic changes.
• The web can provide many interesting resources.
At www.bigapplecircus.org, the New York institution of course touts its programs but also generously provides a multi‐page account (for adult‐level readers) of “Classical Circus throughout the Ages”.
The site for Ecole de Cirque de Bruxelles (www.circusarts.org) describes its many offerings,
including a program to tech handicapped children the skills of acrobats, juggling, and acting, to build confidence and respect and to bring pleasure.
Circus World (www.circusnet.info) is maintained by a circus aficionado, in both English and
French.
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Topic 3: Circus Skills Learn more about specific circus skills, especially those you will see in Jamie Adkins’ performance. See following topic for clowning.
• General: Two books covering a wide range of circus skills: Jack Wiley’s Basic Circus Skills (1974) and
Hovey Burgess’ Circus Techniques (A Drama Books Specialists Publication; 1977) For young students, use Bobbie Kaman’s Kids Perform Circus Arts (1997): for a short book, this
resource does a good job of conveying the range of skills highlighted in typical circus performances (clowning, juggling, acrobatics and contortions, balancing, trick cycling, trapeze – swinging and flying, rope or Spanish web); it also includes “circus talk”/slang and basic circus vocabulary. Or try the series by Ivan Bulloch, An Acrobat, A Clown, and A Juggler (each 1997).
• In the beginning, balance juggling involves supporting an object upright using a single point of
contact; inverted equilibristics involves different kinds of headstands and handstands, much of which is traditionally called hand balancing; vaulting includes different kinds of jumping with ropes, hoops and sticks.
• At a more advanced level, toss juggling involves cascades and showers, with take‐aways and
passing; stack equilibristics involves such balancing routines as stiltwalking, rola‐bola, unicycle, unsupported ladder, and human columns; tumble vaulting involves different kinds of rolls, cartwheels and round‐offs.
• At the most advanced level, gyroscopic juggling involves such routines as plate and parasol
spinning, knife throwing, diabolo, and hoop rolling; rigging equilibristics involves hanging from or balancing upon an aerial apparatus, such as trapeze, rings, slack rope or tightrope; catapult vaulting involves the use of some external means, such as a trampoline or flying trapeze, to throw the performed through the air.
• Juggling
This is one circus skill you may actually be able to practice easily in the classroom. The two basic movements are ‘showering’ (in which objects follow one another around in a circle) and ‘cascading’ (in which the objects are caught and thrown alternately by both hands, so that their paths cross in midair). In cascading, the hands are held at the same level; in showering, the throwing hand is lower than the catching hand.
To introduce the students to juggling, there are many short manuals, some even packaged
with balls, scarves or beanbags (see Juggling for the Complete Klutz by John Cassidy).
To bring juggling into a math curriculum, see “Circus Science” by Carl Zimmer (Discover, February 1996). Mathematicians have long been fond of juggling.
• Balancing
The Acrobatics Book by Jack Wiley (World Publications, 1978) contains drawings of many stunts, and explanations of the biomechanics involved in many balancing, rolling, pivoting and free flight situations.
• Slack Wire (or rope)
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One of three types of “wire acts”; the others are the high wire and tight wire or tightrope. Like tightrope artists, slack wire artists walk thin (less than a half inch wide) wires that are rigged from about six to fifteen feet above the ground. Because the wire is low enough to jump to safety from a fall, an artist’s hands are empty (no balance poles as on the high wire), free to juggle.
Expand your circus vocabulary Funambulist: one who performs on a tightrope or a slack rope. Equilibrist: one (as a rope dancer) who performs difficult feats of balancing
After the Show
Topic 1: History, skills and aesthetics of clowning
• In some circus performances the clowns not only perform their own routines (the clown entrée) but also fill in between acts, giving the aerialists and jugglers time to rest, change costumes, or set up for the next routine. Sometimes they even interrupt the other routines. As in drama, they vary the pacing, intensity, and mood of the performance.
• To some commentators, clowns are the “soul of the circus,” whose actions both reflect and parody
the skills of the other artists. • Background Reading
The book Be a Clown: Techniques from a Real Clown by Ron Burgess (2001) is recommended for grades four and up. It focuses mainly on helping young readers choose a clown type and develop a clown character. It includes straightforward definitions of four clown types – the auguste, the classic whiteface, the comedy whiteface, and the character clown. Burgess distinguishes the types by describing how each might interact with a large wrapped box, a helpfully concrete device for young readers.
For adult level readers, John Towsen’s Clowns (1976) remains the standard resource, with
many rare illustrations and photographs
To learn about specific clown skills, Catherine Perkins’ The Most Excellent Book of How to Be a Clown (1996) is recommended for intermediate grades. Older resources for older readers include: Charles R. Meyer’s How to Be a Clown (1977).
For early readers, try Jake Drake: Class Clown by Andrew Clements (2001). Pair this with
the durable Class Clown by Johanna Hurwitz (1988) to discuss how the impulse to “clown around” differs from professional clowning.
Topic 2: Circus Schools
• Learn more about the schools where contemporary performers train and develop their artistic routines. Diana Starr Cooper says that “the lives of circus performers represent a dream of freedom and focus, which makes running away to join the circus” more likely to require running away to go to circus school. Learn more about the settings in which circus skills are taught.
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Robert Sugarman’s Circus for Everyone: Circus Learning Around the World (2001) surveys “a global phenomenon that developed in the last quarter of the twentieth century.” He includes professional circuses (a lengthy consideration of just three: Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey; Big Apple Circus; Cirque du Soleil) and circus schools (twenty‐four from around the world are profiled), plus a variety of other circus manifestations, from youth circuses to circus camps and circus residencies (Cascade Elementary in Renton is included among “in school programs”).
Brad Spurgeon discusses circus schools in “Hot To Get Into the Act,” in the International
Herald Tribune, February 11, 1997. o Although China has the longest‐lasting tradition of circus schools, these institutions are
now spread throughout the world. o The Moscow circus school was the first modern school. The Soviets were cut off from
the rest of the world, so they started the school to get acts for their circuses. Begun seventy years ago, it was a model for many schools in Eastern Europe.
o France now has more than one hundred circus schools, and the number of schools in Canada (including Ecole de cirque de Quebec) has grown because of the success of Cirque du Soleil.
o The schools teach “three basic disciplines – acting, dance and flexibility – in addition to skills like juggling, acrobatics and unicycling.” Many students then go on to specialized studios or coaches as they develop an act.
Topic 3: Running away to the Circus
• To integrate Jamie Adkins’ performance with the language arts curriculum, explore with students the use of circus as a setting for adventure, freedom, and thrilling accomplishment. Does the idea of “running away to the circus” still have appeal? Are there any contemporary equivalents?
• For middle‐schoolers, Touch of the Clown by Glen Huser, (2001), loads its story about a clown
workshop for teenagers with a number of social problems – a young teen wise beyond her years coping with the death of a parent, alcoholism in other relatives, abuse, AIDS, and the threat of gang involvement.
• For adult‐level readers, several recent books examine the appeal of running off to join – at least
travel with – a circus. Josser: The Secret Life of a Circus Girl (paperback 2001) by Nell Stroud details the seven years she spent fresh from Oxford University, with a traveling circus, as an outsider, or “josser” while Donnalee Frega’s Women of Illusion (2000) opens up the “lived experiences of the performers themselves,” the women of the Huber family.
Topic 4: How Should Circus Be Performed?
• If you look at tomb paintings from ancient Egypt or drawings from ancient China, you will see
acrobats and clowns putting on a show – thousands of years ago. In many ways it is the same kind of show circus artists are still creating in countries all over the world. Circus is probably mankind’s oldest and most widespread performing art. Some Chinese students your age even go to special school, where they spend half a day on academics and half a day learning circus skills. There are other famous circus schools for college‐age students in Russia, France, and Canada.
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• Performers have different ideas about how circus should be done. Perhaps you have been to a typical North American three‐ring circus. Many circus‐goers enjoy the noise and spectacle of competing acts, which go on in three rings at the same time. Elephants might be creating a pyramid in one ring; at the same time trapeze artists fly in the second ring and jugglers perform in the third ring. Other circus‐goers want to concentrate on the artistry of each act – to see the difficult feats of the acrobats or the funny routines of a solitary clown – one at a time. They prefer circus done in a single ring, as it has traditionally been performed in Europe for more than 200 years.
• Whether or not to use animals in a circus is another question about which artists disagree. Some
people think that a circus is not really a circus without animals. They argue that traditional circus is the one art form in which animals and humans collaborate as equal partners to create a uniquely exciting routine. Circus animals, they say, are neither sentimentalized nor mistreated. They are well cared for, as working artists, like the human performers. Other circuses choose not to use animals. Some circuses don’t want to take on the planning and expense of traveling with animals. Other artists just want to highlight the human animal – that is, all the amazing things human beings can train their bodies to do.
• How do you think circus should be performed? Four circuses that have been started in North
America in the last two decades have answered that question in different ways. They all perform in a single ring. Two choose to use animals. Two do not.
The Pickle Family Circus was started in San Francisco in 1974 by clowns and jugglers.
They do most of the show, but there are also acrobats, wirewalkers, hand balancers, and trapeze artists. They do not use animals, because they don’t want to “haul them around the countryside.”
Paul Binder and Michael Christensen, who had been comedy jugglers in France and wanted
to start a circus in the United States like the ones they had seen in Europe, started the Big Apple Circus in New York in 1977. Animals are central to a Big Apple performance. One “Old West” routine even featured a trained buffalo. And Katja Schumann is one of the most famous equestriennes (horseback riders) in the world. Binder says “Animals as performers are central to the classic mode [of circus], and the respect for animals is reflected in their treatment as a part of the circus and in the presentation of relationships between humans and animals. “ The circus also uses acrobats, gymnasts, aerialists and jugglers.
Cirque du Soleil (“Circus of the Sun”) was started in 1984 to celebrate the 450th
anniversary of the discovery of Quebec. The artists are very young, mostly less than 25 years old, and they perform in a big tent especially made for them by a French sailmaker. They do not use animals in their circus. Cirque du Soleil’s founder, Guy Laliberte, has said, “I’d rather feed three artists than one elephant.” They are more interested in exploring all the ways human beings can use their bodies and be funny. Cirque du Soleil also uses intense sound and light and other special effects, such as fog machines, to create excitement.
Circus Flora was started in 1988 and named for its star elephant, Flora, who was, in turn,
named for Babar and Celesete’s daughter in the Babar books. The founder of Circus Flora, Ivor David Balding, believes that “you can’t have a circus without an elephant, a horse, a clown and a pretty girl, and that’s’ the order of importance.” Flora has even taken ballet lessons from a famous dancer and teacher, Martha Clarke.
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Questions for Students
1. Why do you think all of the circuses described under Topic 4 have chosen to perform in a single ring?
2. a) Do you think animals make circus more exciting? b) Do you think circus needs animals?
3. Which of these four circuses would you most like to see? Why?
Students can also learn about the history of circus by reporting on some of its famous performers and presenters. Possible subjects include: Philip Astley; Andrew Ducrow; Jules Leotard; Hachaliah Bailty; P T Barnum and/or James Bailey; Fayette Yankee Robinson; Dan Rice; the Ringling Brothers; Ephraim Williams; The Fratellini Brothers; Gunther Gebel‐Williams; Joseph Grimaldi; William F. Docy; Annie Oakley; Lou Jacob; Oleg Popov; Emmett Kelly; John Bill Ricketts; Irvin Feld; David Larible