{"id":798,"date":"2020-01-21T09:51:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T09:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=798"},"modified":"2020-01-21T09:58:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T09:58:07","slug":"travelling-circus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/01\/21\/travelling-circus\/","title":{"rendered":"TRAVELLING CIRCUS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TRAVELLING CIRCUS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A collaborative performance of Hanging By\nA Thread, which included work by Just Poets, Touchstones Creative Writing\nGroup, Spiral Dance (now Can\u00b4t Dance Can) and People Print (now Community\nMedia), was performed in Rochdale a few years ago by Skylight Circus Arts. It\nwas the parting performance by the circus organisation, as they prepared to\nleave a soon to be demolished premises to move to a new home elsewhere in the\ntown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Skylight Circus Arts<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

They reprised an adaptation of the show\nas part of the cultural Olympiad \u2018All About Us, Rochdale\u2019, which, in the words\nof Martine Bradford from Skylight Circus, \u00b4was all about celebrating arts,\ndrama, culture, music, dance, circus, along with all those sports we saw in the\nOlympics. The show was a collaborative process featuring Skylight Circus Arts,\nM6 Theatre, Spiral Dance and People Print. Young people from Skylight groups\nand Falinge worked together to create a piece that was inspired by Rochdale\u2019s\ntextile heritage. All those looms, all those mills, all that steam, all the\ncotton, all the rope, and all the people who worked there as well, from the\nchildren to the adults. We put it all together and made a production called\nLooming Brilliant.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The benefits of the collaboration were\nexpanded on by Caroline Kennedy, M6 Act Now! Young People\u2019s Theatre manager at\nthe time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Skylight Circus Arts workshop<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Working with other Rochdale arts\norganisations really enriched the performance and gave participants a truly fulfilling\ncross art form experience fusing high quality theatre, dance and circus skills.\nThe Falinge Junior Wardens, aged 8-14, worked with both M6 and Spiral Dance on\ntheir sections of the performance and the skills they have gained from both\ndrama and dance really complement each other. As the different  groups rehearsed together and got to know\neach other, new friendships were made which is a really important part of a\nproject of this nature and something which all the staff were really pleased to\nsee. By the time it came to the performance day, we were one company all\nworking together.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Having Skylight Circus perform in the\nM6 Studio Theatre added another thrilling dimension\u00b4, Caroline concluded, \u00b4and it\nwas great to have the building buzzing with excitement from all the highly\nskilled participants and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching the show you couldn\u2019t help but\nrecall the industrial revolution as exemplified in the opening ceremony of\nLondon 2012. Having the show performed in the confines of a studio theatre\nreally brought home Blake\u2019s \u201cdark, satanic\u201d description. It was also a lot\nsharper and tighter than the original performance, mainly due to cultural\nOlympiad funding, which enabled increased rehearsal time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Caroline added, \u201cProjects of this\nnature do require a lot of extra work, but I\u2019m sure we all agree that it is\nworth it. Loomin\u2019 Brilliant was so incredible; we are already planning our next\ncollaboration! With such a wealth of talent in the Rochdale Borough, it seems\nonly right that we bring it all together and share our skills with each other. The\nsum was definitely greater than the combined parts as our overwhelmingly\npositive audience feedback testifies.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It certainly does, and we include a\nselection from thirty \u2018post-its\u2019 left by happy visitors: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat a fantastic show \u2013 gives you faith\nin the kids of today.  Well done to all\nkids, youths and adults \u2013 super\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely amazing \u2013 best show this\nyear\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn excellent performance and a creative\ninput to Rochdale\u2019s history. Worthy of being performed in the Palace Theatre\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine our surprise and delight, then,\nwhen shortly after retiring here to Lanzarote a few years ago, Dee and I\n\u00b4discovered\u00b4 a circus company very similar to Skylight operating over here, effectively\nplaying the same field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
13th successive year MalabHaria<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every year the Haria circus hosts an\ninternational gathering of circus acts, who give public al fresco performances\nand more traditional gala shows in the evening during the first year of a new\nyear. We went to great pains to ensure we caught one this year\u00b4s gala\nperformances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The adverts carried on the weekly\nnewsletter and web site of the English language Lanzarote information web site,\npromised a wonderful circus festival, with four days of public events all over\nHaria for from 2nd<\/sup> January. Various circus activities would be\nperformed free for the public in the town\u00b4s streets and squares throughout\ndaylight hours and then each day would culminate with an evening gala\nperformance at 8.30 pm in a venue not precisely identified on the posters\nMiguel had re-printed on his pages. These were the same posters as could be\nseen around the island and in various other local Spanish language print media publications\non the island, so there was no more that could have been done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was all to be part of 13th<\/sup>\nannual performance of MalabHaria, a circus gathering attracting circus groups\nand performers from all over Europe. It is always held the area at this time\neach year, and yet somehow we have never managed to attend previous shows.\nDespite the fact that Dee and I worked occasionally and were good friends with\nthe management and performers of Skylight Circus, we have found a reason over\nthe previous four years here to miss the annual shows. The journey up to Haria\nto watch an event that would then see us driving down tortuous, unlit\nhairpin-bend mountain passes that would lead us back to the South Of The\nIsland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
going through hoops<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This year, though, our 2020 resolution\nis to be even braver for our readers than we have been in the past, and so the\nSaturday evening gala performance of 4th<\/sup> January was scribbled in\nbright red ink on our big Lidl Lanzarote calendar. Having girded our loins and\ntaken a stiff drink, (no, no that was a joke, officer) we set off to Haria at\n5.00 pm with the intention to be there early enough to buy a ticket, as we were\nsure that despite any mentions thereof on the posters, tonight\u00b4s would be a\nticketed event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was, too, the fact that we didn\u00b4t\nknow precisely where in Haria the gala would take place and what parking might\nbe available in the proximity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We, were, though, determined to deliver\na report for you all and so stopped at our local petrol station and requested\nthe attendant to \u00b4Completo noventa y cinco\u00b4 to ensure we had enough fuel to set\noff, get lost, finally arrive in Haria, then set off back home, (having watched\nthe gala) and get lost all over again in the dark on the hills with Dee\nshouting at me to just follow that star, as if we were wise men on a camel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, when Dee went in to pay she\npicked up a January edition of a gratis magazine called Guia and as I drove up\npast the Salinas de Janubio, pink-tinged by a setting sun, she flicked through\nthe magazine that had been published only this week, and found an advert for\nsaid circus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fading light she began muttering\nas she read. \u00b4Oh, its on at the football ground, or at least it says deportivo\n!\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mumbled that it all sounded ok, then,\nas I know where the football ground is, but I kept to myself that I know it to\nbe at the end of a narrow, snake-like one way system that slithers around the\nlate artist\u00b4s Cesar Manrique\u00b4s house and that, when everyone later departs at\nthe same time, reduces progress to less a snake-speed slither than a snail like\ncrawl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Oh, there is an admission charge, but\nits only five euros,\u00b4 Dee informed me in her best Fiona Bruce voice as she\ncontinued reading the news. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, now we were on our way armed with\nall the information. What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miraculously, nothing did go wrong on\nthe way there, and we wound our way into the car park at the football ground\ndead on six pm, (for an eight thirty start, remember !) . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had approached up the hill from the\nwindmill roundabout at Arietta  rather\nthan by over the tops from Teguise and because I didn\u00b4t have wifely\ndispensation neither had we taken the terrific adventure trail that is the\nTabeyesco road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gates to the ground were open, and\npretty much unguarded, and with hindsight we should have sneaked in whilst we\nhad the chance. The only people around were a family of three with a distinct\n\u00b4circus look\u00b4 about them, in so much as the father figure was wearing a silky\ngroomed, long-hair wig and a bowler hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Entradas completo,\u00b4 the jolly looking\nclown informed us whilst two people who might have been his wife and teenage\ndaughter pulled sad faces and wiped away mock tears. This was all good fun, and\nthey were very friendly but the bottom line was that the hire wire circus event\nwas sold out ! We wondered how this could be when no tickets had been\nadvertised but the family informed us that, in fact, tickets had been on sale\nsince the 10th<\/sup> December in Haria town hall, but now they were \u00b4all\ngone\u00b4. How could anyone have known that, we asked. Well, apparently the web\nsite had been mentioned on the fliers. What fliers, we enquired? There had been\nno mention on any of the fliers we had seen. No, they only came out this week,\nit seems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiouser and curiouser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to be helpful, and seeking to\nconsole us, the circus family explained that, even as we spoke there were live\nevents taking place in the square in the centre of town, so we set off to catch\nsome of that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was then that the enormity of this\nevent hit home to us. There was no car parking space for about five square\nmiles, and the streets and squares, all beautifully lit, were thronged with\npeople jostling for good viewing sites of what seemed to be jugglers and mime\nartists etc demonstrating their skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the few cars trying to navigate\ntheir way through were being hurriedly waved on by harassed looking policemen\nand though it all looked to be a buzz we had no choice but to make a bee-line\nfor home, disappointed and dejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was some consolation in stopping\non our return journey, for a meal at The MargeRita in Puerto Calero, before we\narrived back home to find Clinger, one of the several cats belonging to our\nneighbour Pepe, waiting for us on our patio. She looked up at us, shaking her\nhead sadly, as if to ask \u00b4another wasted journey, eh?\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Circus in Haria<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Well, almost, but not quite wasted,\nbecause I was so exhausted I tumbled straight into bed and enjoyed a full night\nof deep sleep. Circus-dreaming, I watched marvellous performances by GropCirco\nMyers, Xampetito \u00b4XO\u00b4, Gala de Circo and the clown antics by Kicirke Kicerke,\nthe areal dexterity of Fredito \u00b4Oyun\u00b4 and the jumping through hoops of Gala\nCierre. There were daring young men on the flying trapeze and armies of acrobats\nperforming somersaults in my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come Sunday morning, we awoke determined more than ever to visit Cirque de Soliel ( logo right) on Gran Canaria later this year, and to more fully investigate the mystery of tickets on Lanzarote that never seem to go on sale. We are sure it is our fault for not being sufficiently pro-active, though, and so we have made resolution number two of the new year to serve you better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local Lanzarote government (The\nCabildo) could clap their hands, though, and say \u00b4job well done\u00b4.  The town was absolute heaving, and as parents\nwatched enthralled, children were being educated with transferable skill sets\neven as they learned to climb ropes or to dance on rolled out barrels. All the\ncircus organisations taking part in this collective event were attracting\nnon-traditional audiences and new generations to their art forms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local bars and restaurants were all\nprobably having their most profitable week of the year and, certainly amongst\ncircus communities, the small town of Haria was being spoken of all over\nEurope. These and so many other fringes are benefits of supporting the arts and\nmaking them part of the community and we would love, one year, sot Skylight\nover here as part of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, our friend Margaret is on the\nisland for the next few weeks. There is something of an interrogative detective\nabout her, and she is unafraid to question across language barriers anyone she\nfeels might be able to direct her to sites and events of authentic culture. It\nmight be time for us to set Maigret Margaret to work to investigate ticket\nsupply and demand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, we still have another circus\nevent to look forward to later in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cirque du Soleil is a\nMontreal-based entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus\nproducer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was\nfounded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 June 1984 by former street performers Guy\nLalibert\u00e9 and Gilles St-Croix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When their production of Luzia toured\nEurope at the start of this year one of its earliest destinations was The Royal\nAlbert Hall in London. For several years now any performance by Cirque de\nSoliel has been a major event so it was not surprising to see a review included\nin the Dail Mail\u00b4s Friday arts pages on January 17th<\/sup> and it was not\na surprise either to see it appearing below a headline of Super Circue Works\nIts Wonder. It wouldn\u00b4t be too surprising now to learn that many readers might\nhave had to stop to catch their breath to read that review after taking a look\nat the accompanying photograph of a Luzia contortionist  twisted into what looked an impossible\nposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the Cirque De Soliel\u00b4s thirty\neighth show in London but for reviewer Melanie McDonagh it was her first and\nshe said the show had met all her hopes of being \u00b4thrilled, frightened and\nentertained.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show takes its name and narrative\nfrom being a celebration of Mexico. It is not celebrating what has become the\npopularly held view of Mexico today as a country of drug deals and a high\nmurder count, but of the Mexico as inhabited and brought to life by artists\nlike Frida Kahlo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was working with Pam McKee as\nJust Poets in the UK, Pam and I were so enthralled by Kahlo that we designed a\nspecial creative writing workshop, using her story and creations to inspire the\nsessions which we delivered in schools and to adult writing groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
art and artefacts of Frida Kahlo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A Mexican painter known\nfor her many portraits, self-portraits, and works reflecting the nature and artefacts\nof Mexico, Kahlo was inspired by the country’s popular culture. She employed a\nna\u00efve folk art style to explore questions of identity, post-colonialism,\ngender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong\nautobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to\nbelonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define\na Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scenery, settings and costumes of\nthe London production of Luzia perfectly reflect that era with its fashion and cast\nof girls dressed as humming birds. It is all very nineteen fifties, which some\nwould say was the most glamorous time of Mexico\u00b4s  history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this is seen through the visual\neffects of pouring rain, which throws amazing patterns as it tumbles down and\ndisappears, though  to where was\ndifficult to fathom, if you will pardon that pun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a show we saw last year by the\nCuban National Circus in Lanzarote, the clown in Luzia does not speak, but\ncommunicates with his cohorts and his audience through whistles. He was,\nreports Ms.  McDonagh, \u00b4brilliantly\nfunny.\u00b4  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few days before reading the Daily\nMail review of the January production in London, we had booked to fly over and\nsee the show, scheduled for July, on Gran Canaria, a neighbouring island of\nours.  We now know we can look forward to\n\u00b4feats of strength and dexterity that are something else.\u00b4 We are also\nexpecting to see a balletic muscle-man and a performer called Ugo Laffolay\ndoing the splits on bendy canes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mail\u00b4s reviewer described the\ntrapeze act as being one of \u00b4somersaults from one moving swing to another,\nbackwards somersaults, triple somersaults and two at a time.\u00b4 Her report\nwobbles a bit there as she had her hands over her eyes at this stage,\napparently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recovered in time to witness a\ndazzling juggler. When she reports that he made the only mistake of the evening\nshe does so more to reassure herself that what she had been watching had been\nof human endeavour after all, on an evening of perfect feats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we will be off to the circus again in\nJuly so that we can bring you our own report on Luzia by Cirque De Soliel. We\nmight not be able to deliver a review as informed as that in The Daily Mail,\nbut might possibly be able to verify Danny Dyers\u00b4 comment in arrival newspaper  that \u00b4Circue de Soliel are people who do weird\ns**t !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we have booked the flights, reserved\naccommodation and have printed out our tickets from the on-line booking site.\nWhat could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TRAVELLING CIRCUS A collaborative performance of Hanging By A Thread, which included work by Just Poets, Touchstones Creative Writing Group, Spiral Dance (now Can\u00b4t Dance Can) and People Print (now Community Media), was performed in Rochdale a few years ago by Skylight Circus Arts. It was the parting performance by the circus organisation, as they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circus","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}