Circus - a London institution Written by Ian McQuaid with illustrations by Rebecca Strickson
This June, contemporary circus director Yaron Lifschitz brings his new show DEPART to LIFT 2016. DEPART will see the tombs and stone angels of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park infiltrated by circus performers, the graveyard recreated as an amorphous stage. Lifschitz’s splicing of feats of wonder and the city landscape plugs into a long, largely unsung tradition; the circus as we know it was born in London, far before the oldest resident of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park had taken a first breath. And whilst Lifschitz’s work is unquestionably of the now, history suggests that this pioneering, modern take on the artform has much in common with the anarchic Londoners who first paired satire, slapstick, clowns and daredevils some three centuries before.
The circus as a place of comedy, chaos and catastrophe started elsewhere... There’s a common misconception that the first place audiences roared while acrobats and clowns choreographed anarchy was in the circuses of Ancient Rome. The Roman Circus was more like a pre-Christian Grand Prix; an extended race track for chariots to thunder around. The other events that Hollywood has gleefully sited in Roman circuses- gladiators hacking off each other’s limbs, lions snacking on unfortunates, have little parity with the circus as we know it.
The circus as a place of comedy, chaos and catastrophe started elsewhere. And while the story of circus is a nebulous beast, there’s a consensus amongst the ringmasters and charlatans that guard the history; the modern circus began, like so much other bedlam and entertainment, on the streets of 18th Century London. In 1768 the British Empire was flourishing. Canada and India had been captured, American Independence was still only a series of discontented murmurs from overseas. Gold and goods were pouring into the capital, and the people who flocked to the city were hungry to consume whatever entertainments their new found fortunes could buy.