Category: Dispatch

“Look at Me!” Review

Published on by ohluckylottie

“Look at Me!” The circus approach: working with
children and young people through the circus arts
By Steven Desanghere
English translation by Steven Desanghere and Translation Kings
Published 2016 by Steven Desanghere
This copy is from Lottie’s personal collection.

This booklet is not specifically written for circus-folk… We will not delve/dive deep into the inner workings of specific circus techniques, but rather take a look in to the successful methods applied by circus schools when it comes to dealing with people in the margins… and how this can inspire you in your method of working.

Desanghere, p.12

I love this booklet, because it aims to teach the skills of master community circus teachers.

And I don’t mean that it teaches how to spin plates, walk a wire, or fly through the air– on the contrary, it teaches the really important stuff, like how trust and self expression help youth grow into resilient adults, how to balance complicated group dynamics, how to celebrate and teach to different abilities, how to orient lesson plans for optimal learning and experience. These are the sort of rare and powerful skills that a master teacher acquires from years of teaching, learning, and dedication to their students; they’re rarely taught in circus schools or workshops for young coaches due to their complex nature.

Furthermore, this booklet isn’t even intended for circus folk, as Desanghere points out in the above quote, and this is what I really appreciate about it.

So often, circus is treated as purely entertainment by noncircus folk. As many of you have likely experienced as well, whenever I’m introduced as a ‘circademic’ in noncircus circles, I find I am always prepared to launch into an explanation of how circus has played an important role in American and European history, and is both an effective development tool for working with youth of all kinds and a therapeutic tool for adults of many kinds. It’s exhausting after awhile. Somehow there’s a persistent information barrier between the serious study of circus arts and the rest of the world. This booklet is one of the few bridges between those worlds.

Community circus teachers have to be endlessly creative and intentional about how they teach, and this booklet brings that breadth of study into the open for teachers of all disciplines. The lessons of flow, proximal development, risk taking, the rhythm of differentiation (individual work) and integration (group work), among others– these are useful skills for all educators.

Bottom Line:

An inspiring and deeply useful booklet for anyone interested in a different perspective; densely packed with a little circus history and a lot of lessons learned from community circus teachers working with diverse youth.

Also, if you’re looking to find it / more information: I was fortunate to receive this booklet from Steven back in 2017 when we were presenting at AltroCirco in Italy, and I’m not sure if it’s for sale anywhere. I recommend checking out and supporting Circusplaneet where he has worked as a community circus teacher, and also the EYCO youth worker resources, where you can find a PDF copy.

How do we decide which books to review? These book reviews are not paid by either the authors or publishers. We do sometimes receive a free book though, which is pretty great. We love books. We are not obligated to post any review, positive or otherwise; we post reviews because few others seem to be doing so and we wanted to read circus book reviews. We hope they’re helpful to you as well. Some books were already part of our collection and we wanted to show them off. Some books we found in a small free library or the thrift store or bought for ourselves like capable adults. If you’d like us to review your book, or a book of your choosing, email us at circusdistrict@gmail.com.

The Circus Ship: Review

Published on by christiankloc

The Circus Ship

By Chris Van Dusen

Published 2009 by Candlewick Press

This copy is from Christian’s collection.

In many children’s books on the topic, ‘circus’ becomes synonymous with ‘a gaggle of animals.’

Fortunately, due to Chris Van Dusen’s marvelous illustrations in The Circus Ship, we can forgive him for this egregious generalization.

As a review on the back of the book states, ‘the pictures are the true stunners.’ In each of his illustrations, Van Dusen depicts the vivid story of an ill-fated ship, its determined animal survivors, and the momentarily skeptical townspeople who receive these unexpected guests.

The story was inspired by a real event. In 1836, a vessel described as a ‘steamer and a sailing vessel with the advantages and disadvantages of each’ experienced a devastating fire about a mile off the coast of Maine. On board were more than 90 passengers and crew, as well as a variety of circus animals, who had just finished a three-month tour of the Maritimes in Canada1.

In Van Dusen’s version, the steamboat hits a ledge with a ‘CRASH’ and a ‘BASH.’ As the vessel sinks, the domineering circus boss Mr. Paine demands that his sole crewman Mr. Carrington row him to safety — with no regard for the animals’ welfare.

Luckily, in this completely non-tragic retelling, all of the animals can swim!

I applaud Van Dusen for incorporating vocabulary like ‘bedraggled’ into his description of the wild creatures’ state upon arriving to shore. Many authors limit the sophistication of their prose when writing for ages 4-8, when that age group has much to gain from ‘challenge’ words enveloped by strong visuals.

The town that receives the animals is based on the island of Vinalhaven, from whose coast residents witnessed the real-life steamboat catastrophe. It’s unsurprising that despite the event’s serious casualties (31 people drowned, while all of the animals were lost), rumors persisted about the animals’ true fate.

Van Dusen embraces this adventurous notion of townspeople suddenly finding ostriches, monkeys and elephants in their midst. The accompanying pictures capture incredible perspective and depth as the animals work their way into the town’s heart — making this a great book for young readers to get lost in.

For a read-aloud, I find some of the book’s four-line poems to be clunky and lazy, in keeping with its convenient plot devices (see: tiger rescuing a child from a burning shed to earn the town’s trust).

The predictable story nonetheless bears fruit in a splendidly illustrated spread featuring 15 cleverly hidden animals evading their red-faced owner’s retrieval (like any good villain, Mr. Paine charts a furious rowboat into the horizon).

BOTTOM LINE:

While I loved the colorful illustrations and the spirit of the book, I wouldn’t recommend it as a stellar read-aloud on the topic of circus. Kids who love animals will adore the detailed drawings. The human characters have very little depth, but for those who love seeing a mean-spirited man get what’s due, this is a cathartic read.

CITATIONS
  1. Harry Gratwick (2010, June 15). ‘The Tragedy of the Royal Tar: Maine’s 1836 Circus Steamboat Disaster.’ The Working Waterfront Archives. http://www.workingwaterfrontarchives.org/2010/06/15/the-tragedy-of-the-royal-tar-maines-1836-circus-steamboat-disaster/

How do we decide which books to review? These book reviews are not paid by either the authors or publishers. We do sometimes receive a free book though, which is pretty great. We love books. We are not obligated to post any review, positive or otherwise; we post reviews because few others seem to be doing so and we wanted to read circus book reviews. We hope they’re helpful to you as well. Some books were already part of our collection and we wanted to show them off. Some books we found in a small free library or the thrift store or bought for ourselves like capable adults. If you’d like us to review your book, or a book of your choosing, email us at circusdistrict@gmail.com.

Artists of Note: Françoise Rochais

Published on by christiankloc

This week’s juggling inspiration is French juggler Françoise Rochais, who displays amazing talents juggling with batons. She is the only person I’ve heard of juggling as many as seven batons at once.

But more than that, she creates beautiful and unique acts incorporating other non-traditional juggling props like parasols and tennis rackets. Her distinguished style shines brightly in performances that exhibit not just impeccable juggling technique, but style and grace to go with.

Photo by Brian Miller © 2007.

If you haven’t noticed, jugglers aren’t always the most graceful bunch.

However, given the rise of contemporary circus acts seamlessly incorporating dance and fluidity into their acts — and a history of artists like Francis Brunn and Eva Vida elevating the art form with their elegance —  we might be in for a regime change.

For contemporary examples, look no further than Svetlana Zueva, Bekka Rose and Anni Küpper. There are so many more folks to include on this list that I might have to redact that ‘jugglers aren’t graceful’ line.

Nevertheless, it’s important for jugglers and circus artists in general to have role models with the poise, charm and amazing technical juggling skills Françoise possesses.

Françoise has an impressive track record of performing at festivals and events around the world. More recently, she has worked as ‘Francesca’ in the circus duo ‘Elastic and Francesca,’ exhibiting her physical comedy and clowning skills in addition to her juggling prowess.

To celebrate Françoise’s juggling, learn a simple baton twirl! Holding a baton (or stick) with your arm to your front and your knuckles upward, turn your wrist first inward, then outward, following the motion of the baton inside your arm, then outside. The more you practice it, the more natural and free-flowing it will feel. Just think “Françoise” as you twirl and you’ll be on your way to winning a juggling pageant in no time 🙂 For video guidance, see the ‘vanilla/chocolate scoop’ 40 seconds into this video.

See the Circus: Review

Published on by ohluckylottie1 Comment

See the Circus
By H. A. Ray
Published 1989, 1998 by Houghton Mifflin Books
This copy is from Lottie’s collection.

Today is not a serious book review. I won’t even try to pull your leg for a little while– though I was tempted, the truth is, even my usually undeterrable adult circademic criticisms largely melt away in the face of my inner child squealing with delight, opening all the flaps.

To justify this completely shameless “book review”, I’ll do my best to look at this from a couple perspectives.

For children in general: It’s so delightful! Look how cute Rey’s drawings are– all these characters like plush toys, smiling in a world where a curious little monkey will always turn out alright and all the neighbors will always have a laugh in the end. It’s the kind of feelings we all need from time to time. The flaps hold no terrible surprises, as long as you’re ok with a lot of performing animals who seem pretty happy.

For raising circus children: It’s a fun and adorable peek into circus history. Circuses may not look like this anymore, but it’s a lot of what circus lore looks like. I can’t say that the book teaches any useful skills, or gives any real insight into circus life, but it might inspire a youngin’ to daydream about traditional circuses and perhaps plant the seeds of inspiration to try out a circus life later. (Maybe I should’ve included that as a warning in the previous section for all children.)

For adults of all kinds: See the ‘For children in general’ section.

Circademic commentary: This book is a little dated. Performing animals are not currently accepted as they were in the late 1980’s when this was originally published and most big circuses still primarily featured such. On a human note, there’s not much apparent diversity, though there are some pretty bossin’ ladies.

Bottom Line:

*inner child flips all the flaps and makes up long crazy stories about all the characters*

How do we decide which books to review? These book reviews are not paid by either the authors or publishers. We do sometimes receive a free book though, which is pretty great. We love books. We are not obligated to post any review, positive or otherwise; we post reviews because few others seem to be doing so and we wanted to read circus book reviews. We hope they’re helpful to you as well. Some books were already part of our collection and we wanted to show them off. Some books we found in a small free library or the thrift store or bought for ourselves like capable adults. If you’d like us to review your book, or a book of your choosing, email us at circusdistrict@gmail.com.

Artistes of Colour: Review

Published on by ohluckylottie

bookcover of Artistes of Colour

Artistes of Colour: Ethnic Diversity and Representation in the Victorian Circus
By Steve Ward, PhD
Published 2021 by Modern Vaudeville Press

There is so much to say and unpack and understand about race and ethnicity in circus that it’s hard to know where to begin this review. However, I suppose I will start by saying that I enjoyed reading this book very much. While it is not within the book’s purview to address all of circus’s complicated past, it focuses specifically on the Victorian Era (1837-1901 CE) in the UK. And a remarkable time that was.

By this period, modern Western “circus” was young-ish but already about 70 years old, as many consider its founding to be in 1768 by the equestrian and master of pageantry, Philip Astley. It all began with:

“Lavish hippodramas…, spectacular pageantry, and reconstructions of famous battles, all involving men and horses, pandered to [British] public nostalgia and enthusiastic nationalism. So the circus was to reinforce Britain’s view of itself in the world and its attitude towards foreigners and a perceived ‘evil’.”

Ward, p. 9

And British circus more or less continued to be that.

But as Ward describes through incredible individual stories, this fervor for the ‘exotic’ took on a different tone through this era of industrialization. British interest in other people became more curious, imaginative and daring, fueled by nascent scientific and ethnographic endeavors. While these interests largely continued to place light-skinned British people at the tippity top of the human hierarchy, they also enjoyed and celebrated independent performers from around the world. (Still horrid, but a sign of progress? Open for discussion.) Many of these performers became celebrities in their own right, owned and ran performance venues or troupes, ran in high social circles– but let’s pause here, because I think I might be making a very fun book sound kind of boring with my historical description.

Ward’s book is like following a detective down the winding paper trails of seemingly-mythical humans.

Each chapter is dedicated to a different person, or a different group of people operating under the same performance name, or a different group with a certain type of ‘exotic’ performance.

I found myself in alternating states of amused, infuriated, surprised, fascinated and horrified– each set of stories evokes a fresh aspect of performing in this time period. It is rarely predictable. I don’t want to give away any of the fun surprises.

It’s clear that Ward spent a lot of time researching; as a researcher myself, I doff my cap. These stories are built from the tiny puzzle pieces of show billings, court records, newspaper announcements, and (if you’re lucky) official records of births, deaths and marriages that together assemble the story of each artist. And oftentimes even these documents lie! Between the circus’ tendency for hyperbole, smear campaigns, a competitive market, experimental marketing and plain ole terrible record keeping, this book is an incredible feat and keeps you on your toes.

Nothing could stop these enigmatic performance pioneers of the 1800’s from striving for success; floods, fires, financial woes (of which there are many), pain, serious injuries, sudden deaths of beloved performers, violence, and multiple remarriages of varying success (generally by men, and often without evidence of the previous wife’s acquiescence). All of these obstacles seem to have plagued those whose stories are told within these pages.

And yet they carried on, show after show.

Few of the artists retired to a peaceful old age, as far as we can tell.

While we can’t go back and change the experiences of the past, I’m appreciative of authors shining light on our circus ancestors’ lives. It’s intriguing to put these eras, and consequently our own, into perspective; what privilege our generation enjoys in its current stage of multiculturalness and ease of international travel! In the world of the Victorian Era British, the circus was, for many ordinary people, one of the few times they would ever have access to see someone from Japan, or Morocco, or from anywhere that wasn’t ‘home’.

Artistes of Colour left me wanting more, in a good way. Things I would love to see more of:

  • Stories of women, female-presenting and trans artists. I understand the literature is scarce, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it.
  • Perspectives from the artists themselves and how they experienced this environment, more than reconstructed perspectives based on available circumstantial evidence. Circus artists– that’s right, I’m talking to you— write down your current experiences! Future circademics will thank you.
  • More depth and stories on performers from India, China, Japan and South America, which are begun here but surely could have whole books dedicated to the subjects.

Bottom Line:

A very useful, entertaining and delightful read. I thank the author for bringing these stories to life.

*How do we decide which books to review? These book reviews are not paid by either the authors or publishers. We do sometimes receive a free book though, which is pretty great. We love books. We are not obligated to post any review, positive or otherwise; we post reviews because no one else seems to be doing so and we wanted to read circus book reviews. We hope they’re helpful to you as well. Some books were already part of our collection and we wanted to show them off. Some books we found in a small free library or the thrift store or bought ourselves. If you’d like us to review your book, or a book of your choosing, email us at circusdistrict@gmail.com.

Artists of Note: Rudy Horn

Published on by christiankloc

This is a continuing series highlighting circus performers and producers who’ve made an impact on circus arts history and culture.

Photo courtesy of Bradford Timeline, (c) 2012. https://flic.kr/p/PfGsgP https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

This week’s featured artist is Rudy Horn. He was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1933 and began juggling at age 7. Instigated by his father, who gave him three apples and encouraged him to juggle, Rudy took those apples to greater heights than anyone could have imagined.

During the 1940s, he entertained U.S. troops in Germany in exchange for cigarettes and chocolate, which were valuable bartering tools at the time. In the 1950s, he joined Circus Krone and began touring the U.S., appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show and in other exhibitions of variety arts.

Rudy’s unbelievable tricks included a series in which he rode a six-foot unicycle while flipping cups and saucers onto his head one by one; a seven-ball force bounce off of a drum; and a long seven-ring cascade with a lamp balanced on his forehead.

See them all in the video above! Ball bouncing @1:05, Rings @ 1:53 and Unicycle @ 2:51. Talk about an exhausting and fast-paced routine!

Rudy didn’t see another performing juggler until 12 years into his juggling practice, making his achievements even more incredible. Imagine going 12 years without being able to ‘Google’ somebody and instantly pull up their act on YouTube. You could say those were simpler times, but Rudy’s juggling was far from simple.

In January 1965, the International Jugglers Association newsletter reported the following:

“If you prefer juggling that is high wide and handsome and full of suspense you should certainly see the phenomenal Rudy Horn.”

To celebrate Rudy’s juggling, toss some cups and saucers on your head. Just kidding! Leave that to the professionals.

Unless you like breaking a lot of plates, learn a foot balance instead! As Rudy demonstrates, using an object that is taller with a heavier top makes the balance easier.

Warm up by balancing on one foot for 30 seconds to a minute. Then, place the base of the object on the part of your foot just above your toes. Look at the top of the object and stay underneath it. Try to keep its motion right-to-left as opposed to forward-backward. It’s harder to recover when it’s falling towards you or away from you. This a fun trick to try with a cane or with an upside-down, folded umbrella.

Stay inspired, and keep creating art!