Circuses were meant to entertain people. They usually traveled from city to city staying one or two nights at a time and then leaving. The circuses were presented in theaters that had ramps and a full orchestra down in front of the stage. While at the circus you would see people dancing on the backs of horses along with doing ballets and Italian shadow plays. Circuses now a days are a lot different than they were when they first began in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The circus has had very interesting performers. Circuses in the 19th century were very entertaining to the people who were watching them. They were excited and always smiling while attending these circuses. The acts were very high energy and kept the audience drawn in. …show more content…
The three main circuses around that you hear about are The Big Apple Circus, Cirque du Soleil, and Ringling Brothers and the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Each one of these circuses are different in special ways and them being different is what makes them interesting. This is because if all of them were the same you wouldn’t want to see them all. The Big Apple Circus is different from the others because “Following what seemed to be an evolving performance style for America’s nouveau circus, the Big Apple Circus utilized its intimate tent setting to create themed shows and featured perennial clown Barry “Grandma” Lubin, who would become New York’s signature circus icon.” (Williams51) The Big Apple Circus has wow factor, they are into giving the audience a thrill and a shock and that is how they really draw the audience in. Cirque du Soleil is a lot different from the other circuses “Cirque du Soleil also requires its performers to undergo rigorous training at its campus in Montreal. And unlike most circuses that are a collection of acts, talents are developed to fit a role created by Cirque’s artistic creators and designers. Perhaps blending of old with new, reality and fantasy and circus with theatre imparts a feeling to the audience that the genre has somehow changed, transgressed accepted performance modes and perhaps moved on to newer performance spaces and narratives.”
Ousby (2006) states that Rubinstein ‘interrogates the truth of ‘science’’ in the scenario where children ‘perform in a dangerous circus, where their deaths stimulate the audience’, thus they are used for their abilities by science to benefit one culture, the Vexa. Joella finds out quite quickly that the Vexa like ‘risk, excitement, danger’ and thus she eludes the reader to the science behind the reason why the children are forced to perform like animals; ‘The performers wore pulse bands around their wrists and temples, which picked up and relayed the adrenalin charge to the spectators. The greater the risk for the performer, the greater the thrill for the audience’ (p42).
Barnum; perhaps the most notable was the different treatment of the performers. In Rose’s shows the “freak” is celebrated, not necessarily an object to be marveled at, but a subject that can be a source of joy and entertainment. Thomson makes clear in her article that the value of the “freak” stayed the same whether or not they were alive or dead, that their bodies became pure text to be read by the audience (Thomson). Rose’s show cannot maintain its success if his performers are covered in glass and made to be a display, he relies on the interaction with the audience to conjure a repulsion that turns to
Popularity for live performances heightened exponentially during the late nineteenth century. The United States flourished with circuses, ballparks for sporting events, night clubs, world and state fairs, as well as theatrical road shows. Growing amusement parks, such as Coney Island, attracted customer attendance not just by supplying thrillingly-fun rides, but by also providing an array of the newly emerging vaudeville theatrical shows. Vaudeville was gaining much popularity because it strived to appeal to people of all socioeconomic classes and cultural background as well as offered low admission prices. It consisted of a diversity of individual performances which could range from comical skits, singing, acrobatic stunts to magic shows. “Variety theatre drew larger audiences than the ‘legitimate’ theater which presented classical performances” (Administrator). For this reason, vaudeville theatre was gaining much attraction because it was able to enthrall the population with a wide range of
A circus is a magical place where it seems like nothing negative exists. Though accidents in the circus are rare, they happen. For example, in June of 2013, “ Aerialist Sara Gyyard Guillot, 31, fell 94 feet in Las Vegas and died before she got to the hospital” (providence.journal.com). Even more stories of death-defying acts ending in certain death have appeared over the years. Circuses can fill people with joy, but tragedy can strike at any moment. Just like Sara Guillot, the narrator’s mother in the story “The Leap” by Louise Erdrich, she thrived in the life of a circus performer. In the story, the reader walks through the misfortune of wind striking a circus performance, the narrator defines the astonishing achievement of her mother and how her mother handled her life even after the lightning struck. The narrator likewise demonstrates to the reader why she traveled back home to her mother using the literary element personification. In the story, “ The Leap” by Louise Erdrich, personification assists to
Sports were in rising popularity before and throughout the 1920’s. The economy was working astonishingly well, and the common American had substantially more disposable income that they did not have before. This gave numerous people the money to pay for the cost of entertainment services. Baseball was by far largest in popularity, with stars such as Babe Ruth. The 1919 World Series caused much commotion during this time, and slingshotted the popularity of Baseball and subsequently the popularity of other college and professional sports. New innovations such as the Radio and Television, made it easier to listen and keep track of sports and news across the country. This created a common culture with Americans and gave
...re as same as the audience use in their everyday life. Easily connecting to the audience, with visual, audio and performer’s performance” one can imagine himself/herself in performer’s shoes.
arrangement, the importance of drama and religion, setting, location. and architectural features of the building. In ancient Greece, festivals were mainly held at the Great Dionysia. This was the oldest theatre in Greece and many plays were performed. here, for example, the first performance of Antigone.
Risk and uncertainty— asking for $1 million from Quebec's government to put on a show together to celebrate 450th Anniversary of the city’s founding. To a mixture, as Dragone calls it, a “transdisciplinary experience” that has become Cirque du Soleil brand trademark with just the right blend of circus, live music, theater, and stagecrafters. After Quebec, Laliberte, and Gauthier, with risk and uncertainty, took their show and went to an Arts Festival in Los Angeles and with a standing ovation, Cirque du Soleil became a formidable organization of talent. The company’s future depends on its ability to sustain the culture of risk taking. The owners made sure that their brand would not be just another drop of water lost in the waves of the ocean; want they wanted was for their outstanding performers to standout and be the crest of the wave. (Kreitner & Cassidy, pp. 234-236)
performance to a major degree reflects the spirit of the times, and some of today's 'authentic' performances have less to do with historical accuracy, attempting rather to produce a performance which, in John Eliot Gardiner's words, will 'excite modern listeners.' (Sartorius)
American musicals just weren’t proving successful- as they were focusing on the previous century’s trend of “substance over spectacle”. However, ‘Brit Hits’ became overwhelmingly successful by breaking away from the previous ideal and creating a theme of ‘bigger and better!’, focusing primarily on creating sights over substance. With casts and creative teams of the shows being larger than ever, as well as the aid of technology advancements- it proved to be the way to go! Larger sets and bigger special effects were introduced, including helicopters flying onto stage and chandeliers crashing on stage. Due to higher budgets and musical theatre reaching its peak, shows like Cats changed the way theatre published and promoted. In the past, shows had only souvenir programs or shirts, but Cats’ signature pair of yellow eyes, plastered the show’s logo, across coffee cups, jackets, ornaments, key chains, pins etc.- anything that could be thought of, changing the course of advertising. These “Brit Hits” showed a promising future for musical theatre, bringing in tens of thousands of new fans and showcasing a real ‘WOW’ factor through the ideal of big budgets, big effects, big orchestration, big casts and overall, big
We're here!" The moment immediately after that, when the whole cast laughs directly at the audience, pointing at them in glee, is nearly unbearable for an audience, as shown b! y the riot after the first performance, when the audience not only ripped the seats out of the theater, but stole the popcorn. Pirandello also used a technique he inherited from the "Cirque de Soleil," involving a trapeze hung from the catwalk.
... a way for audiences and performers to connect on a closer level. They are both experiencing the surreal, disassociating themselves from the performance taking place. They both become more introspective. The performance becomes a vehicle for self-understanding, metacognition.
Stoddart, H., 2000. Rings of Desire: Circus history and representation. Manchester: Manchester University press .
The role of the circus is both complex and simple it is in itself a
The traveling circus changed over the course the years with modern technology making it easier to move theses animals more efficiently, however the conditions of what the majestic animals must go thro...