Sweden
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'In Finland we did the very, very first show and we had these Finnish lumberjack guys crying afterwards because it connected to them as 50 year-old lumberjacks; one guy came to me after and he was crying and saying, ‘This is something that... that really wants to say something’. It’s amazing, to have a circus show that connects to men who are like 50+ lumberjacks. How do you get beneath the surface of that person, the shell of that person, and touch him?'
John Ellingsworth talks to Olle Strandberg, director of the runaway success Undermän, about autobiography, circus texts, the affinities of circus and street dance, working for Cirkus Cirkör, and having to start over after you've lost everything.
'Every artist has a story about themselves. 'I always knew that I was a mover'... 'I could never sit still in school'... 'I just couldn't write, knew that I had to move' – and this story is not enough for me. I always try to go deeper and find what their motivation was. Often we come to a breakpoint, the moment where they took the decision to become a circus artist, and I try to make them remember that breakpoint and what was important for them at that point and how it has changed since.'
Sideshow talks to the director Marie-Louise Masreliez about her devising method, Motion Participatory Choreography, and the piece What About Charlotte.
For all that Jay Gilligan stands by the door and greets each audience member as they enter, Objectify isn't inviting work – it's uncaringly individualistic, highly and minutely developed, and intellectual in that way that is perhaps a little impatient with your ability to keep up.
Sideshow travels to Stockholm for the CASCAS tour – a headlong, six-day race through Swedish circus and street arts – visiting the incredible Subtopia facility in Botkyrka, hearing from students training for work with Clowns Without Borders and from teachers at the University of Dance and Circus, watching circus artists and punks and fakirs at Subcase, and taking many long walks through the snow and ice of the winter city.
There's a certain kind of imagery that's the imagery of the photoshoot. Objects are cut in for colour or to create visual friction – you know the sort of thing: putting a pale, fey model in boxing gloves, or situating a burly thug on the tiny horse of a bleached-out, ruined carousel.
If you were of a mind to, you could perhaps identify two dominant movements in contemporary circus. Both are about that ridiculous word 'truth'. Where is the truth? Where is the essence?
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