The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus PDF
Preview The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus
The Greatest Shows on Earth A History of the Circus reaktion books Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 33 Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2014 Copyright © Linda Simon 2014 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Printed and bound in China by Toppan Printing Co. Ltd A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 978 1 78023 358 1 contents Introduction 7 One Trick Riders 29 Two Cirques Intimes 51 Three The Biggest Tents 75 Four Cavalcades 101 Five Without a Net 121 Six Beasts 151 Seven Clowns 179 Eight Feats 201 Nine Prodigies 223 Ten Transformations 249 References 271 Select Bibliography 284 Acknowledgements 287 Photo Acknowledgements 288 Index 289 Dancing Girl, Egyptian, 1292–1186 bce, painted limestone. Introduction And if you ever came home, you came home in a gilded chariot . . . William Dean Howells Wherever the circus came from, it started like this: someone captivated attention by doing what others could not do. is was a display of startling agility: walking on one’s hands. Springing from hands to feet, over and over. Juggling balls, or knives. Bending so far that one’s head jutted from under the genitals, with legs wrapped around the neck. In short, making a spectacle of oneself. e body as spectacle is the origin of the circus. In the Museo Egizio, in Turin, a wall fragment from 1300 to 1200 bcedepicts a figure of a dancing girl, an acrobat, her long, black hair skimming the ground, her back arched, balancing on hands and feet. At the Los Angeles Museum of Art, a Mexican ceramic statuette of a contortionist dates from 200 bceto 500 ce, and a painted ceramic statuette, even older, shows a man doing the splits. His hands are raised triumphantly above his head; he is grinning broadly, exultant. A statuette from Hellenic Greece depicts a young, nude African acro- bat, his body raised upward from his hands. If acrobatics began in play – the simple joy of doing a somersault – these performers honed that sense of play into theatrics, evoking admiration, wonder, envy, fear – responses shared by artists who, from ancient times, captured these fleeting exhibitions. In ancient Rome, during interludes between chariot races, gladi- ator contests and animal baiting, jugglers and acrobats trotted into the vast arena to offer light diversion. Some such performers displayed their 7 Ceramic acrobat, from Xochipala, Mexico, 900–500 bce.
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