Tag Archives: circus

Arts & Entertainment

One Ring Circus: The Barnum Bash Takes On Tacoma Dome

As a child, the circus isn’t much more than a sugar-induced blur. The standard fare of cotton candy, regular candy, and popcorn, combined with the previously unknown spectacle, makes it one of the best days of your young life, but very little is retained. But twenty or more years on, while the circus still offers the potential for sugar blurs, you find more to examine, enjoy, and ponder. That just may be the advertised magic of it all–a show for Children of All Ages.

Pacific Northwesterners’ most recent opportunity to view this unique and long-running tradition is the gold-standard Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey “Greatest Show on Earth,” which landed at the Tacoma Dome on Friday night for a full weekend of entertainment. (The circus comes to Comcast Arena at Everett this Thursday, August 23, and Kent ShoWare Center the following weekend.) Of the three shows the company has on tour at the moment, it was the Barnum Bash that treated its audience to a nearly two-hour display of acrobatics, animal tricks, and feats of strength.

Featuring just one ring of action, which took up half of the Tacoma Dome’s large floor, the show has a smaller, more intimate feel to it. Among the nearly non-stop action, highlights included trained dogs leaping through hula hoops to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” (really), three motorcycles riding in a metal cage with an acrobat hanging from inside the top, and The Flying Cruzados on a double “wheel of steel.” Rotating on its axis, the performers leap from inside their end’s wheel to the outside, keeping things interesting by jumping rope from time to time. Basketball players on unicycles passed a ball around and around before the husband-and-wife hand-balancing team impressed with their effortless looking strength. While missing lions and tigers, the Barnum Bash features the expected logo-wearing well-trained elephants and the unexpected camel, horse, and dog trio full of feathers and sparkle. Who knew a trotting camel could be so delightful?

A bonus of the Barnum Bash is a free pre-show aimed at the children of young ages portion of the audience. This hour before the show offers a chance to meet performers, try on costumes, go backstage to see the animals, and the sight that is an elephant’s foot dipped in paint and on paper before eating a full loaf of bread. This frivolity is all hosted by fairly non-scary (but very orange-wigged) clown Dean Kelley, who calls this circus gig “a childhood dream come true.”

The show’s strengths lie more in standard circus fare (acrobatics, animals, and stunts) than the comedy used to fill the gaps during costume changes and set adjustments. Anton and Victor Franke’s mime act bored more than it entertained, despite a portion that pulled in an audience member for a faux-boxing ring match. But if there must be a weak link, better it be the father-song comedy duo than the aerial foot-loop acrobats or the man with fire on a stick.

Arts & Entertainment, Dance, Theatre

Living Bridges Brings the Circus to Georgetown

There’s great pre-show entertainment at Circus Syzygy’s Living Bridges, a work in progress hosted by Georgetown’s School of Acrobatics & New Circus Arts (SANCA) through March 11 (tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets, here). The box office is set up in the middle of a gym full of students learning handstands, aerial work and other skills like those that Syzygy performs with a mix of virtuosity and comedy. The contrast is inspiring.

As with most theatrical events, this performance begins with a preshow reminder about cell phone etiquette, only this announcement quickly turns into the theatrical highlight of the evening. Mick Holsbeke’s clown act, which accompanies the increasingly detailed pre-show instructions, establishes his character as the audience’s on-stage surrogate through whom we’ll experience the show. Just as that character gets comfortable the stage is invaded by acrobats that turn this quiet evening into a turbid scene that suggests The Cat In The Hat. They are a chaotic yet pleasant force, Thing 1 and Thing 2 on Prozac, taking easy pleasure in their acrobatic antics.

While Holsbeke is the production’s most fully defined character, later scenes suggest some degree of character for particular acrobats. Terry Crane pushes this the farthest in a series of bits in which he tenaciously pursues another acrobat. Crane also tends to let the audience see how hard he is working in his aerial work whereas the rest of the troupe maintain the traditional poise of the trade in their acts. The focus feels equally engaging and incongruous: I hope Syzygy will find ways to incorporate it dramatically as the piece develops.

Giulio Lanzaframe also develops some character as he tries on a bit of clowning with a lamp and book, but he impresses more with his juggling and slack line. Holsbeke’s invisible rope act is the best of the clown bits and hints at a journey for his character, who may be fighting back against the interlopers with an earthbound mimicry of Crane’s aerial expertise.

Marie-Eve Dicaire’s hand-balancing act makes upside-down splits look as languid and pleasurable as a yawn and a stretch in the afternoon sun. That she nonchalantly knocks over piles of stones in the process revives the casual anarchy of the initial sequence. Oddly, the rest of the ensemble, who had carefully and somberly piled those stones into a cairn colonnade, seems unmoved by her blithe destruction.

In their trapeze act Ben Wendel and Rachel Nehmer manage to combine professional cool with sensual heat. The driving blues accompaniment and lighting changes didn’t hurt but it takes little more than a look or a touch from these performers to put a sexual charge into the waning minutes of the show.

The run of this show is just getting started, but when it does close the troupe will complete development of the project in Toulouse. You might hold out for the finished production, hoping to find your way to France, but in catching Living Bridges during its SANCA run you only risk a sudden urge to sign up for tightrope walking classes.