RE: RAT New English Circus-- article from the Guardian

[Cat Hebert <virtualdrama@juno.com>]

Thanks Adam,

It's interesting to see circus and professional wrestling becoming popular again. The question is ... why? Escape from complexity? Dumbing of America? Something you can talk through without someone shushing you? Something the whole family can actually see together?

Cheers,
Cat Hebert



: RAT New English Circus-- article from the Guardian


ONE FANTASTIC GAMBLE

THE SURVIVORS OF THE MILLENNIUM DOME'S GLOSSY LIVE SHOW HAVE FORMED THEIR
OWN CIRCUS COMPANY. LYN GARDNER REPORTS


Wednesday April 18, 2001 The Guardian

Once rubbish was burned here to generate energy. I am at the building that
served as the combustion chamber for the old Shoreditch Electricity Company.
Over the entrance is the legend: "From dust comes light." So it may prove
next week when a new British circus outfit, the Generating Company, performs
its first show, Storm, in the 180ft-high building.

It will be up to this company, which hopes to develop a show to rival the
success of circuses such as Cirque de Soleil and Circus Oz, to prove that
good things can indeed come out of trash. Almost everyone involved in the
project was also involved in the Millennium Dome's central attraction, a
lowest-common-denominator crowd-pleaser. With its death-defying bungee
jumps, it owed more to Don't Try This at Home than to theatre.

The Dome Show may have been pap, but that is not to say that those involved
don't have talent. If the Dome has any lasting legacy, it is the 80 or so
young performers who were trained to perform in it. Storm includes 20 of
them as performers and artistic directors. They hope to silence those
critics of the Dome training project who argued that once the attraction
closed most of the young performers would find themselves in the dole queue.

As Paul Cockle, former production manager of the Dome Show and now the
producer for Storm, says: "There has been a lot of paranoia in the circus
industry. A lot of people have been saying that there are already too many
performers and we must stop training. But I think that if there isn't the
work to go round, we simply have to create it."

To read the rest of the article, go to the website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/story/0,3604,474317,00.html



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