Circus first appeared in Australia in the middle of the nineteenth century and, despite claims made by today�s traditional circus, has changed considerably since then. The popularity of circus peaked between the 1870s and the 1920s, representing a major force in the performing arts in Australia at the time. Since then, the popularity of circus has declined, facing intense competition from cinema and television. The 1970s marked the beginning of perhaps the greatest upheaval faced by Australian circus. Public attitudes towards the traveling menagerie began to change, combined with a new movement in circus that has prompted both innovation in form and content and reignited public interest in circus. This new movement was motivated by a clear conviction to radical cultural politics (Watt:1992:4). Many of these innovations in form credited to non-traditional circus, are in fact a rediscovery of the political nature of many circus performances. It is no wonder, then, that the community arts movement has found these types of performance particularly useful in meeting its objectives.
St. Leon (1983) considers Radford�s Royal Circus to be Australia�s first circus, opening in Launceston at the end of 1847, although �scattered references in the late 1830s and 1840s survive of obscure tightrope walkers and acrobats in the colonies� (St. Leon:1983:13), including an unsuccessful attempt to open an amphitheatre in Brisbane in April, 1847. Circus performances at this time featured feats of horsemanship, accompanied by tight and slackrope walking, gymnastics, acrobatics and clowning (St. Leon:1983:70). As such, Australian circuses were directly influenced by Astley�s Amphitheatre in London, founded by Philip Astley in 1768, and considered to be the first of the modern circuses. Direct experience of Astley�s Amphitheatre came to Van Diemen�s Land in the form of two convicts, James Hunter and John Jones, both of whom had performed as equestrians at Astley�s, and were transported in 1839 and 1845 respectively. It is noteworthy that one of Radford�s performers was one James Henry Ashton, the son of an English circus proprietor, who opened his own circus in 1851. He was the first patriarch of the present day Ashton�s Circus, making it �probably the oldest circus in the English speaking world� (St. Leon:1983:22).
Circus prospered in the 1850s, profiting from the gold rush �that was to provide the impetus for the spread and popularisation of circus entertainments� (St. Leon:1988a:22). In order to pursue the itinerant population of the gold diggings, circuses began to tour in calico tents, forsaking the fixed iron and timber amphitheatres.
Even by the end of the 1850s, St. Leon (1983)
discovered circus acts had begun to change. While horsemanship was still
the main feature:
| �juggling, rolling globe performances and displays by contortionists could be added to the list. Singing and clog dancing, items that had appeared at Radford�s and later programs had become by that time unique to traveling variety companies.� (St. Leon:1 983:70) |
During the 1860s, trapeze made its appearance, following its invention by Leotard in 1859.
Rope walking seems to have been a perennial favorite with colonial audiences. In 1849, five thousand people watched John Quinn walk a tightrope across the Yarra (St. Leon:1983:14). The famous French tightrope walker, Blondin, toured Australia twice in 1874 and 1875. Such was his popularity that �arrangements were made for excursion trains to run to Sydney during Blondin�s appearances� (St. Leon: 1983:71). In 1 877, Harry L�Estrange crossed Sydney�s Middle Harbour on a tight rope, reputedly earning £10,000 for this feat (St. Leon:1983:71). In the 1920s, Con Colleano, the wirewalker born in Lismore, NSW, went on to international acclaim as �the foremost wirewalker of the twentieth century� (St. Leon:1983:148).
Circus proved to be an extremely profitable business in Australia between 1850 and the turn of the century with at least ten circus companies touring Australia, with some visiting two or three times. The largest of these was the two ring Cooper and Bailey�s Great International Allied Shows, a forerunner to Barnum and Bailey, which attracted up to five thousand spectators to each performance during its tour of 1877 (St. Leon: 1988a:24).
Towards the end of the century, the predominance
of equestrian acts was being challenged by the physical acts of trapeze,
acrobatics, rope walking and juggling. A new element was added to circus
performance in 1882 with the first known incorporation of a menagerie within
a circus when St. Leon�s Circus acquired a traveling �wild beast show�
(St.Leon:1988b:13). The First World War and the Great Depression marked
the beginning of a decline in Australian circus. It also marked the decline
of human performance and the increased use of animal acts. St. Leon (1986:212)
says:
| �Many of these performers, however, were deprived of the time and place of practice during the First World War, while others were killed or injured during the conflict. Furthermore, the Great Depression that followed obliged many circus directors to look for ways of saving money. This they achieved by relying on animals acts rather than outside acts.� |
This decline was to continue during the Second World War, with lighting restrictions and petrol rationing taking their toll. Circus also had to compete with cinema and, later, television, for audiences. When Wirth�s Circus, one of the great Australian circuses to have survived since the last century, folded in 1963, they cited television as the sole factor responsible for the decline of circus at the time (St. Leon:1983:167).
The exotic animal act has been in decline
since 1973, when Australia became signatory to the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species, Wild Flora and Fauna. Since then it has become
increasingly difficult to import exotic animals, such as elephants and
tigers. There has also been a growing ethical objection to the use of animals
in performance stemming from a rejection of species hierarchy articulated
by Singer (1976). This philosophy has enjoyed increasing popular support,
and has lead to the development of a powerful lobby calling for the abolition
o animals in circus. Indeed, many local government authorities now ban
circuses with animals (First National Circus Summit Report:1990:103-110).
The argument that the use of animals in circus is inherently cruel, however,
is questioned in a report commissioned by the RSPCA in Britain. The report�s
author, Kiley-Wothington (1990:199), found:
| �The widely held position that circuses, and sometimes zoos, necessarily cause suffering to animals because of their nature has not been found to be the case. However, there is evidence of distress in the animals in circuses and zoos, and in almost every other animal husbandry system. The question is therefore how must zoos and circuses be changed to reduce this stress.� |
This report angered and was eventually discredited
by the RSPCA whose policy calls for a complete ban on exotic animals in
circus. At an animal welfare symposium held by the RSPCA in Brisbane, Bergin
(1989:65) related his experiences as an RSPCA veterinarian monitoring circus
animals:
| �The ringmaster we see in the circus ring with his whip has little to do with the reality of training animals. With a few unfortunate exceptions, animal trainers rely on reward and positive conditioning to a very large degree, rather than punishment or negative conditioning.� |
The whip, then, is a dramatic tool, and if there is any objection to animal performance, it should be in terms of the message portrayed by the act rather than pointing to material evidence of cruel treatment.
A new movement in circus with a radical cultural
agenda also challenged the old circuses. Circus was chosen because it was
seen as a popular entertainment form that could be used for social and
political comment. Despite this appearing to be an enormous innovation
in circus, political comment and parody was not unheard of in Australian
circus:
| �Among the earliest clowns to tour the colonies were Englishmen, skilled in the art of purveying �jests, wits and bon mots� to mature audiences, artists who were adept at mimicking Shakespeare as well as members of parliament.� (St. Leon:1 983:66) |
Indeed, from their earliest days circuses
in Australia were regarded with suspicion by the authorities. In 1849,
an application to open a circus in Port Philip was refused on the grounds
that:
| �such exhibitions would have a tendency to add to the frightful amount
of crime and immorality which at present exists in the city, by congregating
depraved and abandoned characters�
(St. Leon quoting from the Melbourne Daily News (May 4, 1849):1986:211) |
There is also evidence that last century�s
greatest threat to social order, the bushrangers, had a great deal of respect
for the circus:
| �Outside Queanbeyan, NSW, bushrangers stopped Henry Burton�s large circus troupe. They are supposed to have asked for a special performance which Burton agreed to. After the show, a collection was taken up by the gang and handed to Burton �with many thanks and much praise.�� (St. Leon:1988a:23) |
The political potential of circus discovered
by radical arts practitioners in the 1970s was not so much innovation,
but a rediscovery of its political potential, particularly in respect of
community arts practice. Whether it was in performing to bushrangers, or
simply taking in wanderers into the family life of the circus, it seems
that circus has always fulfilled an important role for those who live on
the margins of society. This is true of traditional circus as it exists
today. Ramsland and St. Leon (1993:93) say:
| �Ashton�s Circus in following its earlier traditions still continues to act as an informal youth and social welfare agency. Refugees from broken, violent and depressed family environments still gravitate to the circus because of its �surrogate� family nature and as a desirable alternative to aimless street life.� |
There are striking similarities between this
social role performed by traditional circus and community circus, first
realised by Reg Bolton in Scotland in 1978. He conducted this project in
Pilton, which is:
| �a conglomerate of housing estates on the north side of Edinburgh ... the backdrop is wrecked cars, dogs upsetting dustbins, playgrounds glittering with broken glass.� (Bolton:1 987:23) |
He established a circus club in Pilton, which
was to become the model for many community circus projects conducted throughout
Australia, such as the West End Community Circus in 1983. Bolton himself
moved to Western Australia in the late 1980s, and has continued his work
there. He (1987:23) says of the first performance in Pilton:
| �There were about six acts, including a juggling act which, looking back, was incredibly basic and they�d be ashamed of it now. But at the time, and in that context, the fact that the children had learned all these skills in their own time, without the help of schools or parents and had the confidence to stand out there and do it was astonishing to the audience.� |
The main difference between traditional circus and �new� circus, as Bolton (1987) calls it, is that this network of learning and support in the latter does not take place within the organisation of the circus. As Bolton (1987:81) says, �there is evidence of circus related activities emerging in many different fields of daily life�, from community clubs such as Pilton, to circus schools such as the Acrobatic Arts Community School in Albury/Wodonga, to the informal passing on of skill between enthusiastic amateurs.
Community theatre practice in Australia �emerged
from the radicalism of the late 1960s or early 1970s� (Watt:1992:4). Since
then, Watt (1992) has observed that community theatre has declined to the
point where there is �an overwhelming sense of a movement in crisis, or
at least stasis� (Watt:1992:4). Ironically, the crisis in the community
theatre movement, which parented new forms of circus, has actually led
to the proliferation of the use of circus in the community context. There
has been a shift in the emphasis of community arts funding policy from
�cultural disadvantage� which �is operative only on the ground of high
culture� (Hawkins quoted by Watt:1992:8), to �cultural difference� which
introduces a �plurality of cultures, now defined more anthropologically�
(Watt:1992:8). As such the models which community theatre has relied on
for many years are no longer appropriate in this context. As Watt (1992:8)
says:
| �In the case of community theatre this shifting set of ideological demands has been evident in a growing sense of disquiet with the social realist and agitprop models with which many companies started. Some [companies] had escaped the nexus of social realism in at least part of their work via an espousal of popular forms such as circus and street theatre.� |
A new model which has been developed by Sidetrack
out of the techniques of avant-garde theatre is described by Mamouney (Quoted
by Watt:1992:11):
| �Cause and effect in narrative is replaced by a fragmented succession of scenes, and you expect the audience to negotiate meaning through what Derrida calls intertextuality, by which he means that we - audiences - interpret meaning in any single text through its difference from other texts.� |
It has been claimed that this work has been particularly successful with young audiences who �relate to it directly out of their experience of music video clips� (Watt:1992:12). Considering that this narrative structure is in many ways similar to the traditional act-to-act structure of circus, recent contemporary circus projects have been working along similar lines. The openendedness of this type of work, however, achieves cultural difference by surrendering the sort of cultural and social specificity which has given the best community theatre its purchase� (Watt:1992:12). As the crisis in community theatre has deepened, contemporary circus has flourished, often with the parent company declining or disappearing altogether. It is no co-incidence then, that as contemporary circus has flourished, specific social and cultural comment has declined, as content is increasingly governed by the universalising notions of artistic �excellence� espoused by the Performing Arts Board (Watt:1992:6-12).
While the history of Australian circus and the community theatre movement have a direct influence on the subject matter of this thesis, there is generally a dearth of research on contemporary circus. Indeed, apart from the work of St. Leon, circus has been historically neglected in the documentation of the performing arts in Australia. One can only speculate on why this is the case, particularly in light of the fact that it seems that it has been a perennially significant form of entertainment in this country, from Radford�s to Circus Oz. Perhaps it is due to the sense that circus is �outside� of society, made up of �depraved and abandoned characters� (St. Leon:1986:2 11), traditionally itinerant, with poor literacy levels and with their own oral tradition. Perhaps it is because circus is seen as �popular� entertainment and therefore not worthy of discussion in relation to �high� culture. It is even less clear why non-traditional circus has also been neglected in terms of research, considering the volume of work that has been conducted on community theatre. Literacy is certainly not a problem in the case of non-traditional circus, with many practitioners having some form of tertiary education. Perhaps it is the demands of circus training and administration that do not permit the time for considered reflection. Perhaps the myth of circus being �outside� of society is still powerful enough to discourage those who are not a part of the culture to attempt analysis. For whatever reason, this thesis represents the only known attempt to draw together the experiences of the last two decades into a comprehension of the contemporary circus industry as it exists today.