In the Oxford English Dictionary, a ‘trick’ is defined as a ruse. A ploy or cunning manoeuvre intended to achieve a specific goal. It therefore refers to an action that in some way manipulates reality. It bends its boundaries. It deceives. Much like ‘artifice’, it exploits the ignorance or naivety of others in order to carry out a planned scheme or create a certain impression. Both words are characterised by suspicion, the threat of being swindled, and the risk of being taken in by something that does not exist. Both have also become permanent fixtures in the vocabulary describing the world of the circus. They have clung to it as tightly as Velcro and define the semantic framework for its interpretation. Language shapes our view of reality; it provides us with filters through which we observe and evaluate events. The words we use carry meanings and reinforce the established order. It is impossible to escape the critical perspective and the justified complaint that, within such a reproduced structure, the circus will always occupy a lower position. ‘Artifice’ is less than ‘art’, and a ‘trick’ does not sound like an ‘opus’. How, then, should we view the world of the circus if the very words used to describe it, from the outset, disparage and trivialise its techniques and achievements? Could the solution lie in incorporating the circus into the narrative and analytical framework of other performing arts – dance, theatre, music? Is it enough to expand the vocabulary to include what is already available, albeit reluctantly used in this context? This is surely a step in the right direction, but is it enough? The circus has its own distinctive characteristics that are hard to find anywhere else. It is precisely these that should be highlighted and recognised as equal to the artistic canon. At the same time, it is worth rediscovering the significance of what already exists. We need to dust off the tricks and artifice from the layer of habit that has built up over the years. We should take a closer look at their meanings, because, paradoxically, it is precisely in these two terms that the very essence of circus art may lie.
A ‘trick’ implies dexterity and skilful manipulation that bends the norms of reality. It can outwit the senses and elude expectations. It takes us by surprise. The fact that we allow ourselves to be taken in by it arouses both dissonance and curiosity. How did this happen? By what right does someone tamper with the status quo that we have so carefully built and maintained? We begin to realise that the whole performance required preparation. To be able to carry out something so convincingly, imperceptibly and with such ease as if it were part of the most ordinary everyday life, it takes work. Not a one-off workshop or course, but years and months of trial and error, repetition, and above all, careful observation of reality. And curiosity. The trick involves a thorough understanding of the rules and mechanisms that allows for interplay with them. Deconstruction: rearranging the individual segments of familiar activities or processes so as to ultimately view them from a completely new, unfamiliar perspective. Creating a non-standard form from very standard elements broken down into their constituent parts, which, no longer connected to one another, no longer seem to be the same thing. An unexpected solution emerges, which after a moment turns out to be obvious, yet from the perspective of everyday routine, unthinkable. Circus performers skilfully rearrange the pieces of the jigsaw, combining elements that at first glance seem incompatible. They create new configurations of familiar things. They experiment.
Taming dissonance
Just as happens in the performance ‘Ballroom’ by the Belgian group Post uit Hessdalen, which I had the pleasure of seeing as part of this year’s UP Festival in Brussels. An artist appears on a stage built on the back of a lorry. He moves through a geometrically complex space, full of diagonals, angles and nooks and crannies, reminiscent of the space in Robert Wiene’s ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’. The difference is that this time we find ourselves beneath a bridge. The main motorway runs overhead. A distinctive hum can be heard. It is grey. An industrial dreamlike atmosphere prevails. Instead of the Somnabulist, we encounter a man collecting balls scattered around him. He is using a special vacuum cleaner to do so. The movements are ergonomic; using the vacuum cleaner means he doesn’t have to bend over every time to reach them.
„Ballroom”, Post uit Hessdalen, photo: Lilla Konig
He is focused, lost in his own world, which he permits us – the audience – to enter only occasionally, usually when he takes off his headphones and lets us feel the rhythm of his movements. He gives the impression that he has always been here, that this is his job. Repetitive, tedious and lacking in any particular excitement. Yet weariness and boredom are the mother of invention. The man comes up with a new way of placing the balls in the basket. A method that’s a challenge. He begins a game that makes use of the surrounding space. He bounces the balls off the sloping surfaces. Seemingly offhand, yet with precision. He observes. He squints, carrying out complex calculations in his head. He calculates the angle at which he should position his hand so that, after a sequence of bounces off various surfaces, the ball lands in the basket. And as a rule, it does; we are witnessing a juggling virtuoso, and every mistake (a dropped ball) merely proves to us that everything is happening here and now, right before our eyes. We, too, are part of this experiment. The sequences change, become more complex, and the number of tosses multiplies. The balls, bouncing rhythmically, fill the space. We see how the artist has managed to master the laws of physics. Wave after wave of applause sweeps through the audience. Slowly, the initial surprise fades, now calmly resting within the framework of categories we’ve hastily cobbled together to limit the dissonance arising within us.
„Ballroom”, Post uit Hessdalen, photo: Lilla Konig
Just when it seems we’ve understood everything, the performance enters a completely different level – a magical one. The balls stop bouncing and begin to levitate. They hang in the air. They move in complete defiance of the laws of physics. They reduce to fine dust everything we’ve just managed to establish. Another huge question mark appears. Surprise. One could continue to wonder: how? In what way, and what lies behind it? One could. But one can also surrender to pure magic, set aside one’s disbelief, fall into a state of speechlessness, and watch with wide-open eyes as a person manipulates the floating balls, which never touch the ground. At the same time, we remain aware. We realise that we are observing some mechanism, tools that allow the situation to exist in the form in which we see it, but whose secret we do not need to uncover here and now. In any case, we are left with nothing but conjecture. We are in a story whose language is transgression. Someone is deceiving us and we’re falling for it – yet we’re enjoying it.
The desire to re-enchant the world, to see it as something that transcends the visible and the measurable, is relevant and present in the thoroughly contradictory post-modern reality. It seems to be a response to the pervasive uncertainty, the fear of what the future holds, and the need to find meaning or an explanation for what we experience and observe. It may also be the result of the oversaturation, overstimulation and discrediting of the capitalist idea of progress, of ‘subduing the earth’. Despite the ubiquitous mechanisms of rationalisation, control and standardisation, a touch of ‘magic’ is meant to help us believe that there are things and experiences which elude these notions. Or perhaps it is also an attempt driven by the desire to piece together the subject, shattered by postmodernism, and to regain a sense of agency – this time one that is more responsible and conscious in its decisions. Magical thinking has always been with us; it lies in the potential of our imagination. It is no different today. The dystopian picture of what seems to be inevitably awaiting us intensifies the desire to believe that all is not yet lost. Magic is returning in various forms – from a return to spirituality and esotericism right through to belief in conspiracy theories. Or perhaps what we need is not supernatural intervention but a change of perspective? A temporary suspension of disbelief, allowing us to break away for a moment from rationality and the desire to control everything and everyone. This sort of temporary withdrawal, taking a step back, seems to act as a kind of safety valve, allowing societies to catch their breath, but also to refresh their perspective and re-evaluate what once seemed unquestionable. In this context, the post-modern/metamodernist circus is very much ‘in tune with the times’. Through its own language, it describes the fears and hopes that consume us. It remains grounded in the physical and recognises/conveys emotions. It can pin us down with a critique, bring us back down to earth, yet at the same time allows us to dream utopian dreams of other possible worlds.
(Un)usual
On the one hand, the circus engages with technology, experiments with it, but also questions and sabotages it. It enters into a dialogue with it, going beyond the anthropocentric perspective. On the other hand, it turns towards the mundane, the (un)ordinariness of everyday things. It scrutinises the objects we surround ourselves with, sheds new light on them, and brings their magic to the surface. Simplicity and meaning-laden minimalism emerge. These are accompanied by an in-depth analysis of reality seeping through to us via the cracks in the fractured prose of everyday life. This direction is perfectly reflected in the performance ‘Cose a Caso’ by the Italian Compagnie Irrealista, which was also part of this year’s UP Festival programme. Its title literally translates as ‘ordinary/random things’. These are precisely the things that the Polish philosopher Jolanta Brach-Czaina included within the realm of existential concreteness, through which we experience life most deeply. Ordinary activities and objects, though completely overlooked, make up the statistical majority of our life experiences. We have learnt to forget about them, to downplay their significance, and to wait for that big ‘wow’ moment that will move us and rouse us from our lethargy. Yet it is precisely in these everyday rituals and objects that the meaning of our existence lies. Contrary to appearances, these are not ‘lagoons of boredom’ but exciting worlds into whose intricacies Andrea Speranza delves. The Magus. The illusionist. An alert and sensitive observer. He takes us into his cabinet of curiosities. He does not put on a ‘show’ but invites us to co-exist, to feel and to observe the events on stage with care. The space around us contains ordinary objects: a plank, glasses, mirrors. They and we form a unique configuration. A one-off. This is how fleeting moments are created – moments from which magic seeps out. A Polaroid photograph taken just a moment ago reminds us that everything will soon become nothing but a memory. It is therefore worth returning to being here and now.
„Cose a Caso”, Compagnie Irrealista, foto: Lilla Konig
Everything unfolds at a leisurely pace, without haste or sudden movements. Light and shadow weave a story before our eyes, whilst the shifting shapes mesmerise and draw us in. There’s no denying that technique lies behind it all – a technique that is more analogue than digital, rooted in manual skills, observation and curiosity. Observing things and processes helps us to identify connections and get to the heart of the matter, which can be utilised in a utilitarian and pragmatic way, or it can transport us into a world of artistic magic. After all, both these perspectives, though they evoke completely different impressions, stem from a common core. Stage illusion is a marriage of scientific precision and creative performance, which transports us into a completely different narrative about the world. Once again, we witness the skilful application of the laws of physics, the dismantling of structures and processes in order to build entirely new constellations from them. The enchantment of the world takes place here through precisely the same tools used to explain it. Those that underpin the theories and definitions, forming a secure framework for understanding, now become a gateway to new associations and interpretations.
„Cose a Caso”, Compagnie Irrealista, foto: Lilla Konig
Cie Irrealista and Andrea Speranza draw on the tradition of 18th- and 19th-century performances, which laid the foundations for not a few fields of science. The circus in the broadest sense, and its early forms, have from the outset been a stage for experimentation and innovation. It was within this context that the latest technologies were utilised before society had had time to become accustomed to them and deem them safe. Circus buildings were among the first to utilise electric lighting. Stage illusions foreshadowed developments in transport and explored mechanisms of rising and falling that corresponded with the invention of, amongst other things, the lift. People who were not actually in the room were projected onto the stage, long before the film industry caught up.
„Cose a Caso”, Compagnie Irrealista, foto: Lilla Konig
Amidst today’s technological splendour, the show ‘Cose a caso’ goes against the grain, returning to simplicity, to what lies right beside us but which we have already forgotten. It places these things at the centre of attention. This time, the magus-illusionist using this trick does not wish to outwit us. On the contrary, he wants us to look even closer, to notice the details and marvel at them. To notice the little things on which, as Brach-Czaina writes, our lives pass. “We need distance to make sense of anything, and everyday events do not give us the opportunity to view them from afar”, from a different perspective(Brach-Czaina,2018). ‘Cose a Caso’ is precisely such an opportunity.
Deconstruction and multiplication
The trick defies the common understanding of reality. It constructs reality from entirely different elements. Where linearity and the logic of cause and effect prevail, it sees jumbled fragments that can be played with and juggled at will. It teases the senses by serving up the unexpected. At times, it becomes part of an abstract world governed by laws entirely different from those we know. It is a performative manifestation of surrealism, which Apollinaire understood as a deeply considered challenge to the logical order. This is precisely the trick employed by Lupa Maimone (Theater Company Oltrenotte) in the captivating production “Finizioni”.
„Finizioni”, Lupa Maimone, Theater Oltrenotte, foto: Toto Clemenza
Excerpts from it featured in the Focus Italia programme at the UP Festival. Pure dreamlike imagery, laced with the grotesque and steeped in Victorian aesthetics. It is a fusion of the Gothic, goosebumps and the dark humour of the Addams Family with the transgression, subversion and absurdity of Jan Švankmajer, in whose works/films fleshy tongues crawl across the floor. In Maimone’s work, the reality of the stage is constantly transforming. It remains in perpetual motion. Objects appear and vanish; the body decomposes, accumulates and expands. At times, the artist resembles a Victorian Kali, absorbed in a dance of intertwined hands. A strange goddess with a belt of masks wrapped around her hips, each a multiplication of her faces – frozen yet full of expression. Her body multiplies and transforms before our very eyes.
„Finizioni”, Lupa Maimone, Theater Oltrenotte, foto: Toto Clemenza
Everything unfolds to the rhythm of its own carefully considered logic, amidst the smoke of a smouldering cigarette. Intimately, yet with a shiver of unease. Illuminated by a spotlight seeping from beneath a decorative lampshade, the body bends, stretches and transcends. Things that are unreal – or rather, surreal – are happening. We enter a dreamlike reality. We realise we are asleep, yet we experience it very vividly. Maimone employs elements of magic and illusion, doing so with incredible dexterity. Yet these are not an end in themselves. They form part of the choreography, but above all, they become one of the fundamental principles of the world the artist is constructing. The trick allows us to see more than we can imagine and to question what we have already seen.
„Finizioni”, Lupa Maimone, Theater Oltrenotte, foto: Francesco Rosso
Marie-Andrèe Robitaille, a circus researcher, analyses the circus through the lens of the practice of hope and reflects on which aspects of it may be relevant to us now and in the future. Naturally, this is done whilst taking into account the context of the multi-layered crisis in which we constantly find ourselves. Based on the figure of the circle, both architecturally and symbolically, the circus challenges linearity and returns to circularity, cyclicality, and the building of a community based on returns. Contemporary circus turns away from the simple ‘wow’ effect in favour of evoking meaning. Instead of the modernist dream of dominating the world, it reminds us of the fragility not only of the body but also of narratives and definitions. It moves beyond an anthropocentric perspective, expands the interspecies community and remains steadfast in its desire to understand what is ‘other’ and ‘different’. To the diverse range of circus potentials analysed by the researcher, I would also add the trick, seen as a creative tool enabling us to broaden our understanding of the world.
A product of deep analysis, scholarly reflection and artistic deconstruction, it can serve as a catalyst for revising and rethinking the status quo to which we have become accustomed. The trick opens up the possibility of reversing the narrative, gaining some distance, and posing a huge question mark that spurs us on to seek new answers. The trick as a catalyst and a source of potential, a catalyst for weaving utopias. A necessary deception that gives us food for thought. And it is with this wealth of meaning that it should be reclaimed, both for the art of the circus and for language itself.
