If you are Circus Professional or a Circus Fan, there are many reasons to come join the Entertainment & Performing Arts Industry Conference (EPIC). The 24 hour event will be held on January 10, 2022 and here are 6 EPIC reasons for you to come along!
The origin of modern circus has been attributed to Philip Astley. He was an Englishman and former cavalry Sergeant-Major turned showman who set up the first modern amphitheatre for the display of horse-riding tricks in Lambeth, London, on 4 April 1768. Astley did not invent trick horse riding. Nor was he the first to introduce acts such as acrobats and clowns to the English public. But he was the first individual to create a space where all these acts were brought together to perform a show.
Dimitri is a Swiss and international legend. And you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone in Switzerland who hasn’t heard of him. Dimitri preferred performing solo in theatres with only a few props and no scenery. Besides Switzerland, he also performed in many other countries across the globe. In 1995, he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame.
Looking more closely into socially engaged circus, and into Clowns in particular, there is one person who stands out. Many of you might be aware of him due to Robin Williams portraying him in a Hollywood movie in 1998: Patch Adams. A man who is best known for his work as a medical doctor and a clown. He is also a social activist who has devoted forty years to changing health care.
Clowns Without Borders was founded in 1993. Best to say it in the words of the Clowns themselves: “We bring laughter where it is needed most. Clowns Without Borders offers joy and laughter to relieve the suffering of all persons, especially children, who live in areas of crisis including refugee camps, conflict zones and territories in situations of emergency.”
Clowns… they have been called tricksters and jesters as well. We’ve all seen them. In the circus, on the streets, at children’s birthdays, in hospitals… Besides providing excellent entertainment, clowns are an important figure due to the influence they have on us. Amazingly, they bring us far more than just laughter. Instead, they trigger a whole range of emotions. Joyful amazement. Sadness. And, sometimes, even irrational fear. This is a brief look into their history and mythology.
From New York to Melbourne, Paris to Amsterdam, artists dream of seeing their names in lights, belting show tunes, tumbling and pirouetting across the stage. These artists are most often steered away from who they are for marketing reasons.
“How long can I do this?” and “Why am I doing this?” are very important questions that every artist should be asking themselves. Nothing is more ephemeral than a live performance, no curtain will fall twice on the same show, if only because of the cast who, in spite of being the same as the previous night, will be in a different state of body and mind, just like their audience.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” as Juliet says in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. With that in mind, would an actor by any other name act as good and be as relevant? I recently attended a duo piece created by two clowns that was programmed right in the school’s winter break in March so that all those kids with time to kill and in need of a good laugh could attend this show.
Authors Note: In 2016, I met Barry Brazell while working on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship “Ovation of the Seas”. He and I were working together installing state-of-the-art rigging in two multi-million dollar theaters aboard the ship. Barry is always climbing everything in sight like Spiderman, which I later found out was one of his many stunt jobs. Barry is a man that has lived many lives. He has worked in nearly every facet of the entertainment industry from performing to rigging, to stunt work. Before all of that though, he joined the circus. This is his story, in his own words.
I took to writing almost immediately after my father passed away in late 2012. It was originally a way to explain to a large crowd, thru social media, what exactly had happened to him, to explain how I had come to find out he had passed.
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