Or, 3 Things about Old Circus to Embrace in New Circus

     — SANCA Blog Post by Jenna Barrett, SANCA Administrative Director

There’s no doubt about it, working in contemporary circus is fun!

The physical feats are impressive, styles are anything from bold and brassy to thoughtful and sublime; and the jokes are usually pretty funny. It feels like we’re part of the reinventing of circus, bringing a genuine, compassionate, perhaps more intelligent (and less exploitive) facet to the cut glass of this physical arts form, and making it shine like diamonds in the spotlight — or forgoing the spotlight altogether and practicing circus for the joy of it alone, no audience necessary. Like the Beat Generation of the Big Top, or something. Surfing the effervescence of dreaming up liberated yet playful crowd-pleasing acts to a beloved ancient entertainment is exciting, but if we’re going to bedazzle this particular top hat we should acknowledge the history of circus is our history — all of the history, even the seedier parts.

It seems sometimes there is a push to careen forward into New Circus, and by doing so distance oneself from “old,” or traditional, circus. The fact that the demarcation of “New” Circus is necessary at all highlights this; some of how contemporary circus defines itself is by not doing stuff that traditional circus undeniably did do, and those elements are ingrained enough in the recognition of it that they must be forsaken. Let the mistakes of the past be in the past then, my friends, but before we lock old circus history away in the attic I’d like to point out a few antiques that may be worth tucking carefully in the caravan and taking with us as we move on.

1. But Where Are the Elephants?

An Acrobatic equestrian act in Cavalia.

First things first: animals are rarely featured in contemporary circus. This makes sense from a chronological, technological point of view; we don’t use dray horses to till fields anymore, either. While New Circus is largely focused on the physical and entertaining feats of the human animal, it is important to recognize that not all of the relationships between performers and performing animals are exploitive and abusive. Acrobatic equestrians (say that three time fast) are responsible for much of the historical success of circus in the West, and the contemporary blockbuster Cavalia serves as a shining example of promise for future circus that can include performing animals in a positive, mutually beneficial way.

2. Funhouse Mirrors

Funhouse Mirrors at Playland: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library.

Audiences seek entertainment that thrills and entertains, and the things we pay to see on stage and screen are cultural mirrors of each age. Our fears and delights are reflected in other mediums as well, like monster trends in horror movies. If zombies — creatures that were once like us, but are now undead and monstrous — are popular at present because they embody the vile possibilities of the human without the humanity, then could it be that dreamlike aerialists in the sky and cavorting acrobats represent living heroes who show us the dazzling feats that are possible the stranger beside us on the bus?

3. Live Girls

Sells Floto circus M’lle Beeson, a marvelous high wire Venus.

How did circus women help the suffrage movement? In those charming vintage posters there is an unmistakable patina of the seedy, the salty, and risqué always seeming to almost topple into raunchy. However, circus athletes of the early 20th century could not perform in the puritanical trappings of women’s dress of the day, and so they were some of the first women to wear short skirts in public. This gender-inclusive trend continues to this day, where studies show that circus is one of the few sports activities that create success for all kids who put their mind to it, regardless of the social influences and differences that typically separate boys and girls in athletics.

In circus, the only limits are imagination.

Besides, it’s not like traditional circus went anywhere, as the continued prosperity of centuries-old traditional circus outfits indicates. However, it is heartening to see traditional circus quietly reform their menagerie to reflect their audience’s desires, and do away with the more distasteful elements in their shows. Many “circus traditions” are little more than marketing gimmicks dreamed up by the show outfit themselves, to create fondness, and are easily swayed by modern trends. Like circus peanuts. Peanuts? In public?! Where children that may possibly have allergies are present?!? This is America, buster. That’s just a nonstarter. But these days there is room in the theater for both traditional and contemporary, and that emergence is exciting.

If you look up at SANCA, it’s not unusual to see the high-flying quartet known throughout Seattle as Aviatrix hanging from the rafters. Often they are “flying” from their triple trapeze in a retro-circus homage of aviator Amelia Earhart and wing-walking women such as Ethel Dare, the “Queen of the Air,” from the barnstorming airshows of the 1920’s.

Carri Andersen, Cathy Sutherland, Esther Edelman, and Martha Enson as Aviatrix! – Photo by John Cornicello

The members of Aviatrix are Carri Andersen, Cathy Sutherland, Esther Edelman, and Martha Enson. In their combined pasts they have been gymnasts, actors, dancers, and directors. They have performed across the United States and in Europe & Mexico, on the outer edge of the Space Needle, and in the presence of kings.

The inspiration for the troupe came from the 1920’s barnstorming airshows, and Sutherland says after they first got the idea they did a lot of research on aviation and design. It turned out that finding the right costuming was one of their biggest challenges. They searched for months for costumes that fit their theme and could be worn on the trapeze. One of the best finds they made was the Federal Army & Navy Surplus store on Seattle’s First Avenue in downtown. It turned out the store had much of the costuming the troupe needed.

Another challenge the quartet faced in putting the act together was synchronization. With four people working up in the air on a trapeze, but no outside director; how to get the timing right? Lots of video recording turned out to be the answer, and it’s not uncommon to see a tripod aimed at the quartet during rehearsals.

Too Many Martinis!
Photo by John Cornicello

In addition to their wing-walking classic, Aviatrix have devised a “bottoms-up” burlesque act called “Too Many Martinis” that features 5-foot-tall, martini-glass-shaped, stainless-steel trapezes dreamed up by Enson and constructed by musician-sculptor Ela Lamblin of the Vashon Island troupe Lelavision. It’s not every day that you see a new-fangled aerial apparatus appear, so when the martini glasses first came to SANCA, it attracted a lot of attention – everyone wondered what they were going to do and how it would work.

Aviatrix regularly appears in Moisture Festival and many other local Seattle events and shows, but it wouldn’t be far from the mark to say that SANCA is home base for them. When the group was first getting started they trained at the Georgetown Ballroom, but as business picked up at the ballroom, scheduling open training time was getting difficult. SANCA’s founders, Chuck & Jo, invited Aviatrix to train at SANCA.

Sutherland notes that if it weren’t for SANCA, they might not still be training together as a group – it’s that hard to find training space large enough to accommodate their apparatus in Seattle.

“SANCA has been so outstandingly kind and generous to us,” says Enson, “It’s really set up for the circus and aerial training we do, and it’s got a great ceiling height.”

Enson also points out how flexible it is at SANCA and how good the community it is. It’s easy to move their trapeze and rigging to different parts of the building to accommodate classes without missing out on their regular training schedule, and there are often opportunities for feedback and act discussions with staff.

The Aviatrix at Moisture Festival. – Photo by Michelle Bates

“It’s great to see the range of ages training and taking classes here,” Enson says, noting that her own daughter, Ruby, has taken classes at SANCA. “All the staff at SANCA does amazing things. It’s very inspiring to see the staff here training and teaching.”

SANCA staff and students are amazed as well by Aviatrix. Every time they turn on their music to run through their act, people in the gym all stop what they are doing to watch the impromptu performance.

The High-Flying Aviaxtrix! – Photo by John Cornicello

Keep your eyes peeled for Aviatrix’s next public performance and make sure to catch them throughout the run of Moisture Festival every spring in March and April.

Emily Scherb – SANCA’s Doctor of Physical Therapy!

Emily started her circus career when she was eleven years old at a summer camp in Pennsylvania. She began by learning static trapeze, mini-tramp, and tumbling. Then moved on to partner acrobatics, swinging rings, aerial cradle and flying trapeze, and became a flying trapeze instructor when she was 15 years old.

She moved to Portland, Oregon and joined Pendulum Aerial Arts and DO JUMP! Physical Theatre, where she performed for several years. Her career eventually led to Saint Louis, where she went to college for a degree in physical anthropology and dance. While there, Emily taught circus skills at Circus Harmony, a youth social circus program.

After college, Emily worked for a time as the Assistant Manager for TSNY – the Trapeze School in New York. During that time she apprenticed with STREB Extreme Action Company – a dance-based physical action performance school and production company and helped start the Espana Streb Trapeze Academy. She then returned to Saint Louis for graduate studies at Washington University to complete her Doctorate in Physical Therapy.

Emily always knew she wanted to be involved with physical movement and combining working with performance arts and physical therapy was a natural fit for her. She enjoys teaching people how to move – both everyday movement and performance movement. Emily says that physical therapy is really about teaching people how to recognize limitations in movement and retraining to overcome the limitation to return to normal movement and ability.

She thinks that the combination of circus and physical therapy makes treatment accessible at many levels:

• For the general population circus-based physical therapy creates opportunities to develop strength, health, and flexibility in a way that empowers you and builds confidence at the level you are at – and it’s a fun way to stay active!
• For people with disabilities, it’s a way to approach working with a limitation that creates a new perspective and enables a person to do things they couldn’t do before by providing a new, different, or unusual stimulus that wakes up the neurological system.
• For performers and circus artists, Emily shares her knowledge of anatomy and physical therapy to teach artists how to train using good body mechanics and in a holistic manner that keeps the body healthy and avoids injury.

“It’s important to me that I support the circus community and help the community grow in a healthy and sustainable way,” says Emily, “Teaching circus has been a good foundation and education of how to communicate about movement to patients, and the importance of treating the whole body to create coordinated movement.”

At SANCA, Emily keeps active in circus as a part-time Flying Trapeze Coach. She also works with SANCA’s Every Body’s Circus Program, helping to run summer camps for youth with disabilities.

“It’s such a unique opportunity,” Emily says, “Because SANCA has so many medical and sports professionals present as staff, and even as students, that it becomes a very safe and welcoming environment for kids who haven’t had the opportunity to participate in sports. Here at SANCA, they get to participate and they don’t have to feel different from their peers – they get to be like everyone else who is learning circus. At SANCA, their therapy becomes fun – it’s no longer a chore to learn how to use their bodies – and they receive a level of focused attention that’s not always available in other areas of their lives.”

Emily points out the changes that kids experience in the program:

• They’re more confident and determined.
• They learn better weight bearing movement.
• They learn better oppositional (cross-body) movement.
• They improve their coordination and their ability to achieve skills that others often take for granted, like being able to jump, or walk up stairs.

As part of her practice as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, Emily holds clinic hours at SANCA two days a week, and also at her office on Westlake at Lake Union. She is also a touring lecturer, presenting workshops on anatomy and injury prevention for circus performers and students all across the United States.

Hanging out on the flying trapeze net.

Emily can be contacted at the following numbers and locations:

Pure Motion Physical Therapy
www.puremotionphysicaltherapy.com
Phone: (206) 316-0457

Westlake Office
2130 Westlake Ave N, Suite 2
Seattle, WA 98109

Georgetown Office (inside SANCA)
674 South Orcas Street
Seattle, WA 98108

The Flying Randles

The Flying Randles are a mother and daughters team of high flyers that includes Merideth, Evelyn (15), and Carolyn (12) Randles.

They first learned about SANCA when they were living in Helena, Montana and a traveling family circus, the Bindlestiffs, came to town and happened to mention a school in Seattle called SANCA. The family moved to Seattle in 2011 and in 2012 they discovered a coupon for SANCA’s School of Flight in the Chinook Book and decided to give it a try.

Mother and daughters all loved the experience, and really enjoyed doing the activity together as a family. They say it’s great to be able to celebrate each other’s successes. It wasn’t long before they were coming to classes every chance they could, and SANCA’s Flying Trapeze Program Directors Paul Peterson and Katie Wagman started referring to them as the Flying Randles, in the longstanding circus tradition of other family fliers.

For all three, flying trapeze has been a great confidence builder and it has inspired them to also take other circus classes, like static trapeze, aerial rope, and trampoline. One of their high points has been being able to participate in SANCA’s flying trapeze shows. Carolyn says, “It helped me overcome my shyness, being able to do something in front of others.”

Carolyn, as Amelia Earhart in the 2015 spring Fly Show,
is caught by Tom Hanna.

Her mother, Merideth, says that she enjoys the practice for the mental and physical focus required. It helps her to relax and not worry about other things in life, while at the same time being a very engaging and stimulating activity.

“Flying trapeze inspired me to also go to the gym – it gave me physical goals so that I would be in better shape to do more in flying trapeze,” says Merideth.

Merideth performs a layout as a butterfly in the spring 2015 fly show, and is caught by Tom Hanna.

Evelyn points out that she was really afraid of heights at first, but her Mom encouraged her to keep trying, and having Paul as a regular coach was also very helpful. He helped Evelyn to figure out how to overcome her fears and do new skills. One big challenge was learning to let go of the fly bar in order to be caught by a catcher. Paul says that Evelyn’s swings on the fly bar were great, but for a long time she was afraid to let go. For his part it was about providing patience and positivity until Evelyn built up the confidence to trust him as her catcher and let go of the bar. Of course, she not only learned to let go and be caught, she’s also recently been certified to fly out-of-lines (without a safety belt) for basic swings.

“Sticking with the trick until you learn it can be challenging, but it’s really important,” says Evelyn. “Flying trapeze is a great sport to commit to and level up in (gain new skills) because you can do it all year round.”

Evelyn practices a straddle whip.

Evelyn and Carolyn have both applied to and will be attending the International School of Paris for the coming school year. They’ll miss SANCA. Fortunately, Paris is the Capital of Circus in Europe, so they’ll have plenty of opportunity to keep up their circus skills. Merideth, meanwhile, plans to get in as much extra time on the trapeze as she can while the girls are in Paris with their Dad.

One of the things that they all like about circus is the style and the color, and the constantly changing experiences. Merideth says, “SANCA is a great place to have fun and grow stronger mentally and physically week after week.”

“It’s easy for anyone to get started and get better at flying trapeze pretty quickly,” says Carolyn. “Come have fun!”