The Circus has come to town

Analysis

There is a long history of the circus coming to town. Family entertainment businesses of a few exotic animals and performers – some with grotesque features, most with honed skills, almost superhuman flexibility and strength – travelled in caravans and pitched a tent to sell sensory experiences: colour, movement, music, fortune-telling, all designed to awe and amaze a local population. In eras prior to the 1960s, when ordinary people saw little of the world beyond their home towns, the circus and travelling acrobats had a social impact. It was not just an artistic spectacle but a social phenomenon of a connection with the unfamiliar.

Through travel and the proliferation of audio-visual means, local populations were able to experience the sounds, sights and diversity of places and people beyond their immediate environments. Sports science knowledge helped us incorporate what once seemed feats of extraordinary physicality into our own training regimes, and we began to understand that what was once wondrous was indeed achievable – even to the ordinary; indeed for the dedicated ordinary, but achievable nonetheless.

Those travelling circuses now seemed hackneyed, quaint and somewhat ridiculous. They were a bit of fun to take the preschool child or grandchild, who, with fairy floss in hand and still new to the world, tuned into the awe of the moment. Circuses remained nostalgic reminders of a childhood gone by for attending adults.

Reinvention and survival of the big top

From the 1970s onwards, many decades-old established circuses experienced the end of their business lifecycles and the circus coming to town as a social phenomenon waned.

One historically significant circus – founded in 1925 – that managed to hold out way beyond the typical circus business lifecycle was Dongchoon Circus Troupe. Dongchoon, at its 100th anniversary, was reported in the Times precisely because of its exceptional longevity and ability to adapt to changing times. It is the last of its kind in South Korea.

In its heyday, it had more than 200 staff, but shifts in television and internet technology not only impacted audiences, but also drew entertainers to better-paying and higher-status entertainment platforms. Dongchoon’s management said the pressures from changing community awareness of animal rights forced the circus to abandon animal-based acts, and audiences also lost their desire to see dangerous performances.

As with Dongchoon, many of the larger big-top established circuses managed to survive by a combination of nostalgic appeal, concentrating their seasons over summer holiday periods at seaside resorts, and opening schools to the public – training children and adults with short-course juggling workshops and community outreach programs to full-blown professional degrees in the Circus Arts.

In this context, an apparent demand for professional circus arts training would seem at odds with the documented demise of the circus industry as we knew it. Cirque du Soleil became well known for making waves touring the US in the late 1980s.

Over time this unique contemporary animal-free-themed circus producer from Canada showed the world what artistic flair and substantial resources can achieve. Their longest-running Las Vegas residential show – Mystère – was first performed in 1993.

Initially not considered a fit for the gambling mecca, that assumption has been proven wrong, as the program has continued as a residential show since 2003 – over 30 years! Other large and historical names that have managed to reinvent themselves dominate the circus landscape, some are global like Cirque and others local or regionally based like Ringling Bros (US), Krone (Munich), Cirkus Cirkör (Sweden), Moscow Circus (originally a touring circus now based in Moscow), and Silvers and Ashton circuses (Australia).

The Macau experiment and the GBA revival

Believing the success of Mystère could be replicated in Macau, Cirque brought something completely new to the Chinese context in a residential show intended to run 10 years in a purpose-built theatre.

The quirky artistic overlay of Cirque du Soleil’s Zaia may have shaken the brand expectations of mainly mainland Chinese audiences in Macau, and it closed after just three and a half years, less than halfway through the intended run after ticket sales dropped. The early retirement of a show in a run that would have been deemed a success almost anywhere else prompted questions about the applicability of circuses to the Chinese market.

Surveys after shows with VIP guests of the integrated resort at the time suggested that the artistic element was hard for audiences to appreciate, and customers complained the acrobatic displays were not as good as offerings seen in mainland China.

The message here was not to blame it on the circus: the Chinese market likes acrobatic and circus shows, just not sufficiently in the economic environment at the time to keep the one on offer in Macau afloat.
With the Grand Opening ceremony just last Saturday, 1st November, the 8th China International Circus Festival held at Chimelong Park, Hengqin, and open to the public from 2nd to 7th November, is evidence that the circus has a strong place in China’s entertainment scene.

Indeed, Chimelong Guangzhou opened its residential circus in 2003 – Chimelong International Circus – and boasts 45 million spectators to date, in a theatre that can accommodate an audience of 6,000.

The China International Circus Festival as a State-approved international competition and cultural exchange program is also living proof that the circus world has reinvented itself and that it is not simply these large integrated global names that dominate the circus brand space.

Bringing together 18 circus troupes and nearly 500 artists from all over the world, this year’s competition is hosted by the Guangdong Provincial People’s Government and jointly organised by the Hengqin-Macao Deeper Cooperation Zone Executive Committee and the Guangdong Chimelong Group Companies. It has gone from strength to strength in Hengqin since 2013. Beginning as a biennial, it became an annual event in 2016 incorporating public performances, charity shows, seminars and an International Circus Trade Show.

In the Chinese media, the event this year was presented as having a mandate to use circus arts as a bridge between the residents of the Greater Bay Area – to share an emotional connection with each other through cultural experiences and offer another element in the process towards building a high-quality lifestyle. It also serves to enhance Hengqin as a hub for the exchange of ideas, concepts and understanding between people of different backgrounds, locally and internationally – after all circus is a shared cultural heritage.

Such cultural events continue to support three of the stated pillars of the GBA: common identity, high-quality lifestyle and international openness.
The circus is back in town – serving communities as in the past, but here it is remodelled and repurposed for the GBA’s future. By Leanda Lee, MDT