Innovation and Entertainment
I'll start by quoting Charles Dickens:
'People must be amuthed, Squire, somehow, They can't be always a-working, nor can they be always a-learning.'
Dickens was portraying a character called Sleary, based on a real life circus owner he had met. And it's certainly true that people need amusing and entertaining. To entertain successfully, it is necessary to innovate constantly. innovation is the element of surprise. You go to see something timeless, which in its format is timeless, like circus or theatre, and the basic element is the same, but the entertainment, the fascination, lie in the surprises.
However much we like tradition it mustn't become dead tradition. Anyone involved in any live performance is constantly looking for a new style, a new twist, a new way to renew the appeal. It's what keeps the audience interested and amused. Necessity is the mother of invention and has to be found in bringing in new acts to keep the audience interested, new feats, greater achievements, new novelties... One of the motivations is competition. Pride is also a motivation - you can do it better than someone else. The whole history of circus shows us that keeping up with the times is a constant factor. The open air wasn't good enough so they formatted a show in a building. Technology came, rings that could be flooded, plays on horseback, the Battle of Waterloo with 500 horses and a cast of thousands. With Russian circus nationalized under Communism, production styles changed and continue to change. In the 50's , the appearance of chariot races, a Wild West spectacle, and up to date we have theatrical circuses, rock and roll circuses, circus schools.
The invention of the Circus has been copied and refined by others in Britain and abroad. And the circus goes on, the greatest Artform of all, a universal entertainment capable of adaptation from the simplest of one man shows in the open air to a sophistication and high artistic standard which are unmatchable. Innovation continues, and the circus can take it; constantly renewable, tough enough to survive mutation into a theatrical form like Cirque du Soleil or into new genres like the Circus of Horrors. Even attempts to surpress it, using a wide variety of excuses has failed. We, if I can use such a big word to mean the people working in traditional and commercial circus, have always been the leaders in innovation spurred partly by enthusiasm and love, and partly by the need for commercial success.
Commercial success is to a great extent, the ultimate criterion because it is presents the truth of ideas that have been refined and polished and which strike a chord with a large number of people. This is not to decry or knock the Experimental. Schools and training programmes give rise to new alternative forms of circus that also continue. These experiments, no matter how small scale they may be, will give new life blood and new impetus to commercial circus in the future in the same way that fringe theatre provides new ideas for new productions for the mainstream. Each helps the other.
The greatest example of the success of this attitude to circus is France. There we see a thriving commercial circus scene as well as several circus schools providing well trained new artists. The things that hold back British Circus hardly exist in France -- the veto on performing animals, the unwillingness of local Authorities to give sites, the exclusion of circus from consideration that it is worthwhile by the Arts establishment. France has core funding for its main circus schools and has Government support for its National Circus. Our Arts Council doesn't want to know!
Because of the support circus gets there, a staggering number of people in France go to some form of circus event each year. 26% of under 15's go! What a shame that the commitment, vision and hard work of British circus isn't recognized in the same way. This is theatre for the people taking place in the country where it was invented. Many of the projects I have mentioned, might well have continued if they had been able to find official backing. If commercial circus continues to be denied, if not the financial support then at least official approval, the threat it faces is also a threat to fringe circus. If there is nowhere to work and train. if there are no great circuses to go and see, to aspire to, why bother? It's no good relying on new or Fringe acts only. A circus culture, which is not proving popular with large numbers of the general public in all social groups, or becomes 'Arty' or 'Exclusive' is bound to die as other fashions do.
Commercial circus goes on and on because it appeals to everyone. That is what Popular means, and it is essential to keep it that way. The next
innovation must be a National Circus Policy fostering circus on all levels of the social scale, as an artistic outlet, as a physical skill, as an artform to be approved and admired. Circus is all those things and more and it's wide open to everyone. To guarantee its future in such a way would be the greatest Innovation of all.
Chris Barltrop, Moscow State Circus