For a circus that is oriented towards the needs of the audience
“In the circus you can be a child again,” it is often said. Less well-meaning people assume that the circus is something childish. This is based on a misunderstanding. In the circus we experience something immediate, something physical, which usually does not require any explanatory words. Circus art aims directly at the realm of sensations, without trying to outwit them with a framing of conventions, expectations or predetermined interpretations. It thus enables us to take on the perspective of a child, regardless of whether the content appears “childish” to us on the surface. “Being a child again” in this sense is more a euphemism for perceiving art directly with the heart and not seeing it as an object of analysis and interpretation or an intellectual status symbol. I am convinced that this is a common core in which all forms of circus can find themselves.
Circus does not impose any preconditions. The scope of the possible is wider in the circus than in probably any other form of the performing arts. In the circus, you can show a choreography that borrows from modern dance and people who have never heard of Pina Bausch before are moved by it. You can quote the Commedia dell’Arte and make people laugh and dream without anyone in the audience having to have a passion for theater history.
The circus as an art form that sees itself as a conglomerate of diverse artistic performances takes on a mediating role between these individual artistic performances and the mass audience. This function as a multiplier should not be underestimated and should play a greater role in the discussion about public recognition and funding of the circus. However, this very recognition and funding also carries risks and can prove to be a poisoned gift if it follows the usual patterns of so-called high culture. Anyone who is no longer dependent on the favor of their audience risks becoming alienated from them.
100 years ago, the important Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy put forward the following thesis in his essay “The Theater of Totality” with regard to the popular art forms of circus and variety: “...it would be superficial to dismiss the great shows and actions of this genre with the word ‘kitsch’. It is good to state once and for all that the so despised masses - despite their ‘academic backwardness’ - often express the healthiest instincts and desires.” He goes on to say of the aim of art: “Our task always remains the creative grasp of true and not imagined (apparent) needs.”
Who is in a position to understand these needs of the masses? It is difficult to answer the question, but I have a faint suspicion that it is probably not the juries of public cultural funding programs that define "socially relevant topics" in their calls for proposals in precisely formulated bullet points. Now I do not want to be guilty of the same presumption, but when I follow the news every day, it seems obvious to me that imagination, joy, emotion and the experience of these in a community across all classes are now more "system-relevant" than ever - to use another popular political term.
The assumption that popularity has to contradict artistic standards is another misunderstanding, I believe. The remark that art is in the eye of the beholder means, if taken logically, that it is the beholder who elevates something to art. Removing the beholder from the equation, pursuing art solely for the selfish motive of self-realization, rarely does the result any good.
Circus gets incredibly honest, unfiltered feedback from the spectators, precisely because it makes no demands on them, because it invites everyone and promises, first and foremost, nothing more and nothing less than a potpourri of extraordinary skills and thrilling performances. Contemporary circus would also do well to retain this aspect, regardless of the chosen forms of expression. Then you could be a child again in every form of circus.
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