Chess and the circus arts both demand intense concentration and intricate forethought. Circus Flora invites comparison and collaboration between these two human endeavors with its new chess-themed show “The Pawn,” which opened Friday in the big tent pitched in the Powell Hall parking lot.
Musicians and orchestra fans were filing into Powell Hall while the circus crowd was gathering. The physical proximity of concert hall and circus tent begs mention of Circus Flora’s music. On Friday Janine Del’Arte, playing woodwinds, led a world-class circus orchestra through Miriam Cutler’s thrilling original compositions. Cutler and Del’Arte illustrate the circus action so perfectly it’s possible to forget human beings are making the music live inside the same tent.
The passionate collaboration that goes into every element of Circus Flora – down to the crew hands, at times panting for breath in the narrow aisles – is where the chess comparison breaks down. In chess, two players compete for mastery. There is a winner and a loser, and beating an opponent is essential to the game. Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth of the circus.
Circus Flora produces the most demanding and dangerous circus acts in the world. The Flying Wallendas, most famously, balance on top of one another, and on top of bicycles and chairs, sometimes standing on top of their heads. They do these things perched on wires so high above the ground you have to crane your neck to watch them work up there. Everyone in their act has to be a winner – has to succeed at their every intricate move – or they all lose, terribly. On Friday, these geniuses of the high wire were flawless.
The Flying Cortes hurl one another through the empty air from the very top of the big top. They throw one another at the trapezes they leave trailing behind them as they plunge into emptiness, hands outstretched for a partner hurtling their way, hanging by his knees from his own trapeze. The Cortes flying through the air is not competing with the Cortes dangling by the trapeze from his knee joints. They both planned their every move intricately and with the most elaborate forethought imaginable, but they planned their moves together, not in competition.
S. Caleb Carinci-Asch jumps up and down on one leg while standing on a jogging horse. With an assistant, he gets two horses to jog, one behind the other, nose to hindquarters, and then he jumps backwards off of one jogging horse and onto the other. In this act, the intense focus and intricate forethought typical of the circus has an added dimension of a collaboration with another species, but there is no competition between man and horse.
Everyone working on a circus show is focused with an intensity and degree of forethought found in only a few other endeavors, perhaps in chess, but no one is trying to defeat anyone else in the circus. They are all working against adversaries they have in common.
Gravity is a fierce opponent of the circus artist. Gravity drags down flying people and juggling pins and must be mastered. Gravity gives crushing weight to the mass of people the circus artist balances on his head or shoulders and must be endured.
Time is an enemy that competes against the circus artist down to the fraction of a second. When the St. Louis Arches juggle pins in a daisy chain, any one pass a half-second off-beat can drop pins onto the ground all the way down the chain. When a Cortes is supposed to be there, swinging on a trapeze by his knees, for a Cortes flying towards him in the air, he has to be exactly on time.
The human body’s natural systems are an enemy in the ring. Watch how the Cortes playing catch from the trapeze locked between his knees has to make constant adjustments to the sweat forming on his hands as he swings. Pasi – of the Kate & Pasi duo, new to Circus Flora this summer – has to work into his act a comedic excuse to dry his sweaty skull with powder before Kate stands on his head again.
Even the audience – for whose delight all of these tricky, death-defying collaborations are coordinated – can be an enemy. Carinci-Asch fell off the trailing horse on Friday night, he told The American, because a child in the front row had spooked the lead horse by shaking a stuffed animal near the animal’s face when the horses passed in the ring.
Time being an enemy – the circus artist only has seconds to make adjustments when anything goes wrong – the skilled equestrian artist never could reestablish the rhythm they had carefully rehearsed. He had to drop that part of the act after a failed second attempt.
The child with the stuffed animal close enough to the action to spook a show horse – that is the way Circus Flora wants it. Circus Flora puts the circus in your face. The audience is part of the action, sometimes to a startling extent. You might look over from your aisle seat and suddenly see a genius of the circus arts breathily heavily in the shadows, waiting and watching for a cue, one bead of sweat away.
“The Pawn” is the final Circus Flora production overseen by founding producer and artistic director Ivor David Balding, who passed away during pre-production. This production was dedicated to him. After the show on opening night, veteran artists from the Circus Flora ensemble had an unusual mixture of emotions as they greeted the crowd. There was the usual thrill at having dared death and delighted people. There was also profound grief at the death of David Balding, who will be missed.
Circus Flora presents “The Pawn” in the big tent in the Powell Hall parking lot through June 22.
For more information or tickets, visit www.circusflora.org or call 314-289-4040. E-mail: office@circusflora.org.
