1768 Philip Astley inaugura el primer circ, Lambeth, Londres
1772 El circ d’Astley a França
1773 Astley a Dublin, Irlanda
1780 El circ d’Astley a Londres sostrat
1782
Charles Hughes inaugura el “Royal Circus”, Londres. - Astley inaugura el Amphitheatre Anglois, Paris, també a Belgrade,
Brussels i Vienna
1786 Primers artistes de circ arriben a Mèxic.
1793
El circ de Hughes a Rússia. - John Bill Ricketts d’Anglaterra
inaugura el circ a Philadelphia i Nova York. - El circ de Benito
Guerre a Espanya.
1795 Circ d’Astley és cremà
1797 Primer circ a Canadà
1800 Primer circ a Catalunya, Teatre de la Santa Creu, Barcelona
1802 Primer circ a Mèxic, Philip Lailson
1803 Circ d’Astley és cremà una altra vegada!
1815 Primer elefant de circ, ‘Old Bet’ de Hackaliah Bailey, New England, EU.
1818 Primera il.luminació per gas.
1824 Andrew Ducrow compra el circ d’Astley
1825 J. Purdy Brown (EU) primer ‘Big Top’ (envelat)
1826 Aaron Turner (EU) circ amb Big Top (envelat)
1827 Primer circ argentí.
1830 Circ Bragassi a Brazil
1831 Henri Martin (EU) primer circ amb animals salvatges.
1834 Primer pallasso argentí -Pedro Sotora, "el hombre incombustible"
1841 Primer circ a Austràlia
1843 Primera desfilada de circ, Edwin Hughes,“Hughes’ Mammoth Equestrian Establishment” (Anglaterra)
1852 Cirque d'Hiver a París
1832 Sanger Circus (Anglaterra)
1852 Cirque d'Hiver a Paris
1853 Primer circ fix a Barcelona (Camps Elisis)
1855 George and William Pinder (Anglaterra) obre Cirque Pinder (França)
1858 Amelia Butler (EU) primera pallassa
1859 J Léotard (Francia) inventa el trapezi.
1864 Circ de Richard Risley (E.U) a Yokohama, el Japó
1866 "The Japan Imperial Artistes' Company" (artistes del Japó) a E.U.
1869 Circ Chiarini a Argentina
1871 Museu, col.lecció de fires i circ de P T Barnum
1872 Barnum & Bailey tren de circ.
1881 Primer circ de tres pistes.
1884 Ringlig Circus EU. - Circus Busch (Alemania)
1888 Circo Atayde Hermanos, Mèxic
1885 Mort de Jumbo - atropellat per un tren
1903 Hanneford Royal Canadian Circus
1904 Circus Krone de Alemania
1907 Ringling Bros. compra Barnum and Bailey
1916 "Toyo gigei taikai Otake musume kyokuba", Circ de dones, el Japó
1919 Circ de Ringling Bros. i Barnum and Bailey
1921 Circ alemàn a Amèrica del sud
1923 Envelat de circ més gros (8.492 m2)
1927 Universitat de circ de USSR
1929 Ringling Bros. compra American Circus Corp. Bertrum Mills Circus (Anglaterra)
1939 Primer envelat refrigerat, Ringling Bros. (E.U)
1944 Ringling incendi 168 morts
1946 Billy Smart’s circus (Anglaterra)
1947 Karl Wallenda inventa el piràmidede de set gent.
1956 Ringling Brothers i Barnum & Bailey Show tanca.
1968 Ringlig Bros.and Barnum & Bailey Col.legi de pallassos
1978 Circus Oz (Australia)
1984 Cirque du Soleil Circ, Rauly (França)
1985 l'Ecole Supérieure des Arts du Cirque, Châlons-sur-Marne (França)
The Circus
As a child I was never fond of the circus. They were either
frightening - sinister clowns, loud bangs, strange people, camels that
spat at you; boring - the long wait for it to begin, the endless
trampoline act; or disappointing - the mud, depressed apes, “Princess
Rhona the Rodent-woman” a middle-aged lady in a cage full of
guinea-pigs. The mixed emotions must have had a strong effect on me
because it is only now, as an adult, that I look back with nostalgia
(tinged with a certain horror) at an entertainment and way of life that
is more or less dead.
It is often thought that the history
of the circus goes back centuries if not millennia, its roots lost in
the distant past. In fact, although there have always been acrobats,
clowns and jugglers entertaining crowds at fairs and markets, the
beginnings of the circus can be traced to London in 1768.
In
1768 Philip Astley a retired sergent-major from the British cavalry
started a riding school, just south of the river Thames, in London.
Each afternoon, for a small fee, he put on a display of trick riding.
This became very popular with a crowd eager for novelty, and by 1770
Astley had hired a specialist comic actor (“Mr Merryman”) and persuade
his wife give a musical accompaniment on the drum. Thus was born
“Astley’s Amphitheatre”, the first circus. The equestrian acts
required a circular ring for the hoses to gallop round, and it was soon
found that the optimum diameter for this was about 14m (at this size a
person standing on the back of a fast moving horse will be helped to
stay on by centrifugal force, any bigger or smaller and balancing
becomes more difficult). The circus ring has remained this size ever
since, and this is one of the reasons that when larger circuses
started to tour they were made bigger by adding extra rings rather than
just enlarging the existing one.
Soon Astley began to take
his circus to other countries; Ireland, Belgium, France (where, in
1782, he inaugurated a permanent circus - the Amphitheatre Anglois in
Paris). A rival business soon began in London, the “Royal Circus” (the
first use of the name) under the management of Charles Hughes. Hughes
introduced the circus to the court of Catherine the Great in Russia,
and John Bill Ricketts, one of his employees in London, left to start
circuses in the United States and Canada in 1793. The same year Benito
Guerre, presumably from Astley’s circus in Paris was touring with an
equestrian show in Spain.
From Spain and the United States
circuses spread to the Caribbean, Central and Southern America. The
circus became one of the camp followers of European colonial expansion,
with entrepreneurs taking the spectacle to Africa, India, China,
Australia, Japan and the Pacific. In each place inspiring local artists
to make their own local versions, so by the middle of the nineteenth
century the circus was a world wide phenomenon.
It was in
the United States that the circus developed into what we are all
familiar with today. In Europe circuses performences were in theatres
or specially built arenas, in the young America there were much fewer
facilities and generally the shows were put on in the open air. That
is until 1825 when J. Purdy Brown designed the first circus tent, or
“big top”. The first circus elephant began its tour around the small
towns of America as early as 1815. Owned by Hackaliah Bailey, “Old
Bet” was eventually shot early one morning by a group of men who
objected to it being displayed on Sunday (by contrast, its successor
,“Little Bet”, who could do various tricks, was shot by some youths
testing the showman’s claim that no bullet could pierce it’s skin).
Exotic animals were a big draw and after 1831, when Henry Martin
started touring with a wild animal show, the menagerie became a fixed
feature of the circus.
P.T. Barnum was the classic circus
entrepreneur. He saw the potential of the new network of railways to
move much larger and spectacular shows around the country. He combined
the circus show with exhibits from his museum of curiosities to make
an enormous spectacle. Overnight small isolated towns would find hugh
tents erected and the streets filled with clowns, acrobats, wild
animals, giants, dwarfs, human oddities and performing dogs. Then just
as quickly it would be gone. Vast fortunes were made and as quickly
lost. The unfortunate combination of canvas and wooden buildings and
oil or gas lighting meant that fires were common and a whole show could
be destroyed in minutes - Astley’s Amphitheatre burned down three times
in its first 62 years of history, and the terrible Ringling fire in
1944 (started by the serial murderer and arsonist Robert Dale Segee),
that killed 168 people is one of the landmarks in the decline of the
circuses popular appeal.
In reality the travelling
performer’s life was uncertain, uncomfortable and on occasions rather
short, but despite this an atmosphere of romance and excitement grew up
around the idea of the circus. The combination of sexual titillation
and exoticism of the shows, and the lure of the freedom from the
boring and stultifying small town society was to much for many.
Running away to join the circus became not just fantasy and a motif in
literary romances and plays, but a reality for many young country
boys. It is the strange life of the circus people - the mixture of
glamour and squalor, excitement and ennui, and the closed but close and
fluid communities that built up among them - that still hold a
fascination for the majority of settled people.
From its
peak of popularity at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of
the twentieth century, the decline of the circus has been almost as
dramatic as its rise. The growth of other forms of popular
entertainment, cinema, then radio and television, and changes in the
sensibilities of the public, caused a gradual loss of enthusiasm for
the circus. With a more educated and sophisticated public there was a
growing distaste for the exploitation of disabled or malformed people,
and a more enlightened opinions on the mistreatment of animals, which
led to the disappearance of the “freak show” and lately a call for the
banning of animal acts. Health and safety regulations, changing
employment laws and rising costs all put pressure on circus owners and
led to a flood of closures and bankruptcies.
Circus has
continually evolved and changed according to the demands of society.
In recent years (apart from a few beleaguered touring companies) it
has transformed to such an extent that it has become something
completely different, its spirit irrevocably changed. Its reinvention
at the end of the last century, has changed the public expectations of
circus entertainment irrevocably. The so called “new circuses”,
although using traditional circus acts, have lavish and themed
productions that bare little relationship to the unsophisticated shows
and leaking canvas tents of the past. The growth of circus schools and
workshops, and the teaching of “circus skills” as a team building
strategy for businesses or a form of new age therapy, is another sign
of the fading of the mytique of the traditional travelling show. No
doubt the few old circuses left will continue to tour, adapting to the
changing public mood and eaking out a living, but generally the era is
over.
Hence this exhibition.
Andrew Pinder, Selva, agost 2005
Andrew Pinder
....was
born in London in 1955. He studied archaeology, first at the
University of Wales and after at the University of London. For some
years he worked as an archaeologist in Britain, directing excavations
on prehistoric sites and illustrating various archaeological
publications.
In 1986 he moved with his wife to Mallorca and has
lived since 1987 in Selva, where he works as a painter, illustrator and
muralist.
His recent exhibitions include:
La comedia trágica o la trágica comedia de Mr Punch, Museu d`Art Contemporani de Mallorca, Sa Pobla. 2001
Es Jardí, Casal de Cultura, Selva. 2001
Los Rondalles Mallorquines, Selva. 2002
Sa Mina - les mines de carbó de Selva, Es Centre, Selva. 2004
Es Circ, Es Centre, Selva. 2005
Cirque
Pinder, the largest circus in France, was founded in 1855 by George and
William Pinder who were equestrian performers from the same part of
Yorkshire as my father’s family. Sadly I have no idea if I am related
to them, and as the Pinder family sold the circus in 1924, I fear have
no prospect of inheriting the business.