by Duncan Wall
I descended the cement stairs and stepped over the metal railing and hopped down into the ring. It was the first time I had been in one. The floor was made of hard rubber. A narrow entrance led into a hallway. I staked out the center of the ring and stood there. Even without an audience, I understood immediately what the performers had been talking about. I had the sensation of imaginary eyes on my back and the instinct to turn—and keep turning. It occurred to me how rarely—if ever at all—I was completely surrounded.
When Philip Astley created his first circus ring in 1768, he chose the shape to aid the riding master: he stood in the middle of the ring with his whip and kept the horses turning around him. But the ring predated Astley. It went back to the riding masters who innovated equestrian theater—to Johnson, Bates, and Sampson. It went back to the itinerant performers who gathered crowds on dusty crossroads and cobblestone town plazas. It went back to the earliest memories of man. “The circus isn’t just a show,” Pascal had said in Montreal, surrounded by his relics from the circus past. “It’s a link through time. At the risk of being dramatic, it’s the closest thing we have to the origins of human spectacle, to men sitting around a fire in a cave, casting fantastical shadows on the walls, larger-than-life impressions of themselves. That was the original mise en jeu, the point of departure for everything theatrical that followed. There were no words, no drama, just the presence of the body. The body expresses the story, and its impact is as strong as words.”
For a period, I thought, this connection had been in danger of being lost. But to judge by the joyous, anxious din in the hallway—the excited chatter of the circus’s next generation—that danger had now passed.
Acknowledgments
Hundreds of people have contributed their time and energy to see this book through to completion. I couldn’t name them all, but a few deserve particular mention. First, my family—Mark, Claudia, Erin, and Bryan—supported me throughout. My editor at Knopf, Jonathan Segal, took a chance on the book and was endlessly patient with me, a rarity in publishing, and under especially trying circumstances. Thank you, Jon. Also, a special thanks to Jane Chelius, my agent, for helping the book find a home and guiding a rookie writer through the complexities of publishing, and to Joey McGarvey, Lena Khidritskaya, Meghan Houser, and the whole team at Knopf, who made the book a reality. Tim Bradley and Judith Muster suffered through some particularly late nights to help see the book out the door. Dominique Jando, Andrew Winchur, Sarah Fishbein, Amy Cohen, Martha Gribbins, Karen Lange, Joran Elias, Audrey Elias, Hollie Sexton, Rosemary Wells, Megan Hyslop, Cata Ratiu, and Andrew Middleton all read portions and offered helpful suggestions. The experience upon which the book is based would not have been possible without the generous support of the Fulbright Commission, who facilitated the journey, and without the openness of Anny Goyer and the entire staff at the L’École des Arts du Cirque de Rosny-sous-Bois, for letting me into their world for a year. During my time in France and for years afterward, Pascal Jacob, a circophile if there ever was one, patiently tolerated my ceaseless questions. Anna-Karyna Barlati, Rainie Themer, Maureen Brunsdale, Cirque du Soleil, and Steve Gossard assisted with the research. Fréderic Thevenet, Mose Hayward, and Tina Sherwood played along. And a special thanks to all the circus performers, advocates, and thinkers who took the time to speak with me, especially Fred Dahlinger, Jr., Jay Gilligan, Jérôme Thomas, Les Arts Sauts, André Riot-Sarcey, Collectif AOC, Gulko, and Steve Smith. The book is meant to be the record of a community, and these people are the exemplars of it. Circus history is notoriously sketchy. I’ve done my best to find the facts, but I’m sure there are mistakes. They are my responsibility. A few events have been shifted in time to help the narrative, but every person and action is real. Please go see them perform. Nothing I can write could do justice to their abilities.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1, 10.1, 14.1, 15.1, 16.1, 19.1; i1.2, i1.7, i1.13: Used with permission from Illinois State University’s Special Collections, Milner Library
5.1, 9.1, 11.1, 13.1, 17.1, 20.1; i1.1, i1.3, i1.4, i1.5, i1.8, i1.9, i1.10, i1.15, i1.18: Courtesy Collection Jacob-William, Tohu Cité des Arts du Cirque, Montreal, Canada
12.1, 18.1; i1.11, i1.14, i1.16: Courtesy of Timothy Noel Tegge—Tegge Circus Archives, Baraboo, Wisconsin
i1.6: Courtesy of Steve Gossard
i1.12: James McAllister Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand
i1.17, i1.19, i1.20, i1.23: Christophe Raynaud de Lage
i1.21: Michael Meske
i1.22: Martin Gallone
i1.24: Cirque du Soleil
A Note About the Author
Duncan Wall studied as a Fulbright scholar at France’s École Nationale des Arts du Cirque de Rosny-sous-Bois. He is on the board of directors for the American Youth Circus Organization and was the founder and co–artistic director of the Candidatos, an acclaimed clown-theater company recognized by The New York Times for its contribution to the renaissance of contemporary clowning. He lives in Montreal, where he teaches circus history and criticism at the École Nationale de Cirque, Canada’s national circus school.
For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com
A wooden Chinese sculpture dating from approximately 200 B.C.
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An illustration of the Franconis, France’s first native circus family and some of Europe’s most famous nineteenth-century equestrians
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For hundreds of years rope dancers performed in fairgrounds and public gardens. This image was painted in France around 1820.
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A Spanish lithograph from 1880
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An 1860 French chromolithograph. In Paris, female riders borrowed heavily from the ballet tradition for their movements and costuming.
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Jules Léotard, originator of the flying trapeze, in 1860
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A pair of unidentified nineteenth-century clowns. White makeup and such “sack” outfits were common in both circus and pantomime shows.
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A French lithograph from the turn of the century, the end of the elegant period of French circus. The horse remained the driving force of the art.
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An advertising card for the Rainats, a troupe of nineteenth-century French trapezists, or “gymnasts,” as they were called
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Phineas Taylor Barnum, creator of the American Museum in New York and, with W. C. Coup and Dan Castello, of America’s first three-ring circus in 1871
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The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey combined circus lot in Cleveland in 1921. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey circus in 1907 but ran the circuses separately until 1919.
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Paul Cinquevalli, a Polish-born juggler and an international vaudeville star during the 1880s and the 1890s
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A pantomime starring Chocolat (Rafael Padilla) at the Nouveau Cirque in Paris in 1890
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A 1907 courier centerfold from the Sun Bros. Circus “Grand Imperial Program.” Circus images were often recycled from previous shows, and this one possibly came from George W. DeHaven’s Grand Imperial Circus of 1868.
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For 150 years, circus artists served as commercial spokespeople, like movie stars or athletes today. When “Fratellinimania” swept through Paris, the clowns appeared on countless products—candies, jewelry, fabrics, even radiator caps.
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According to the show program, the 1934 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey combined show included 800 artists, 800 crew, 735 horses, 100 clowns, and 8 elephants.
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The Soviet government constructed seventy circus buildings across the country, including this one in Tula, Russia. More than fifty still exist, though many are decaying from a lack of attention.
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Many communist governments subsidized the circus heavily. In Poland, the state paid well-known artists to illustrate the posters.
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Les Arts Sauts, a contemporary French company, practices strictly trapeze. For their third show, Ola Kala, they performed in a cone-shaped tent until it was destroyed.
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Jérôme Thomas, the French juggler, performing in Ici in 2010
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Les 7 Doigts de la Main (the seven fingers of the hand), a contemporary company based in Montreal, performing Traces in 2011
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The Nouveaux Nez (Roseline Guinet, Raquel Esteve Mora, Alain Reynaud, Nicolas Bernard) performing in Cirque en Cascade in 2012. In 2004, Mora replaced Roger Bories, one of the founding members.
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Les NoNo Font Leur Cirque, directed by Serge Noyelle, director of the Théâtre NoNo, a company of actors and musicians, in 2011
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In 1998, Cirque du Soleil premiered O, a resident water circus, at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Franco Dragone directed. Since the premiere, O has grossed over a billion dollars and remains one of the company’s most popular shows.
(illustration credit i1.24)
