Innovation and Entertainment
Mamaloucos, the mother of madness or 'Bag Lady' in Italian were formed in 1994 by Julian Rudd and myself. The original reason we formed was because we were looking for something exciting to do with our lives and had seen Archaos for three years and thought they were really exciting. Our first attraction has remained the central motivation behind the work we do. That is that both traditional circus in the UK and New or contemporary circus in Europe combine an incredible communal life that is outside the mainstream with shows that have a unique direct line to certain feelings that are common to all of us. The various elements within circus can speak a language that arouses fear, curiosity, laughter and other universal feelings. As such it is an incredibly powerful way of reaching audiences outside of regular theatre goers and art events.
Our purpose has always been to create work based on circus that throws out the rulebook and starts again. We quickly developed a reputation for shows which if crudely formed nevertheless created an irreverent unpredictable world that were sometimes hilarious, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly. The company not only defied gravity but also marketing theory in that the audiences were often an uncanny alliance of pensioners moved to tears and houses of cheering, tuned in 20-30 somethings. Circus and safety equipment were frequently used in the 'wrong' way and the performers were often in the 'wrong' place (in the audience) doing the 'wrong' things. At the end of 'Mama Loves Ya' half the audience (150) often ended up back stage following the cast through the middle of an outsize sofa.
It has been said Mamaloucos are the Bumble Bee of the circus world. What I mean by that is that it is aerodynamically impossible for an insect with wings as small in relation to its body as the bumble bee to fly but the bumble bee doesn't know this, so it just does any way. It should technically have been impossible for a circus company with such minimal venture capital to have ever got off the ground, but all those involved at the conception of Mamaloucos believed that it was possible and put so much effort in that it succeeded in getting airborne. We survived with out any real funding for the first four years. Our venture capital was our ability to persuade all sorts of fantastic people that what we were trying to do was a really great idea. We still rely on this method for survival.
Despite the meteoric beginnings and the promise of the shows it was decided that a big investment of time and money was needed to go any further and create genuinely new work that was both powerful and ambitious.
In collaboration with the National Theatre and with rental income from them and a grant from the Arts Council of England, Mamaloucos have designed and built our new home for the show. We toured the National's production of Oh What a Lovely War for 14 weeks during 1998. That was stage one of our rebirth stage two is developing a new show for our tour next year.
Our last 8 months research has been simply a look at other innovative companies in dance theatre and circus with a view to understanding how they create new form and language. We have visited shows interviewed directors and done text based research.
Our particular interest has been how to explore what we don't know and how to abandon artistic baggage and ready made ideas. For us the unknown is exciting. Creatively this is fundamentally important to us. In all aspects of the circus the people involved are at the heart of the work whether this is the technical team or the performers. So from the onset everyone should be involved. This allows everyone to work off of each other and creates integrated work.
What has emerged from our research is a sense of just how creatively exciting this field is. Any new company creating work really does have the ability to carve their own genre. The door is wide open. At this stage we have a list of fascinating questions to be answered in part whole during our show development.
An examination of the 'world' experienced by the audience in the Big Top. To look at the notion that the world created in the ring or on stage in a tent continues beyond the show. This world includes the big top, the nomadic here today gone tomorrow, the otherness of the travelling performer and even the trucks and the caravans. This travelling village in your local park is not your High Street. There is an accompanying experience (magic?) which is the 'world' you visit for the audience and the 'life' you live for the performers and crew. There is a heightened sense in which the performers own the space as we (performers and crew) actually live there. It's where we party, where we eat together, where we idly chat, we even hang our laundry to dry on the guy ropes. Every week we build an entire theatre.
We are concerned about a sanitisation of circus. by stripping away important layers from circus; the tent, the travelling, the life and the dirt, we remove its world and are in danger of turning it into just spectacle.
Bernard Kudlack says it better that I can. A way of life. When you live in family, with your children, in a caravan, eating common meals, you are at the heart of the city/community, you have your own life in the heart of the city/community, you are under the impression that there is no transition between the show and your life, and that is precious. it's a very unstable position, but the Cirque Plume manages to feed 40 people and employs 85 workers over the whole year, it's completely brilliant!
I am extremely attached to the big top as set up. When the big tops arrive in a town, they change something. In all traditional societies, each time that an element changes something, there's a danger of revolution in that particular place, by this I mean that any new person in a group, carries the death or the future of this group. A big top coming into town carries the traces of the transformation of this town. It transforms something for the time it stays there. With a big top you have to be in contact with the wind, the sun, the rain, with the elements and that too is precious.
Mat Churchill