The RING
Founder and Artistic Director of the Big Apple Circus
It is the theatre of the poss
ible where everyone flies
All of the circus can be reduced to the image of a beautiful lady on a beautiful horse," a reviewer of the Big Apple Circus said. He was referring to the world-renowned equestrienne Katja Schumann, who is also the wife of Big Apple founder and ringmaster Paul Binder '63.
You can reduce circus, the survivor, of rituals that gave birth to all theater, even further to a circle called the ring. It began as a space for acrobatic horsemanship. In the 1760s, people discovered that a circle 42 feet in diameter created the maximum centrifugal force that allowed a rider to stand and balance, leaning against the pull. Once the ring itself was defined, the craft of the circus was as well. The early circuses were run by artist/entrepreneurs, directors who also performed. By the 1790s, one-ring, one-tent shows were traveling all over England and had crossed the ocean to America.
From 1840 through the 1930s, circus was the most popular form of entertainment in this country. Shows became bigger to attract more people. Tents got larger, creating leftover space in the middle. As the circus evolved from one to three rings, the circle was broken. Circus changed from theater to business. Its very success killed the craft.
Paul' Binder didn't care about this loss at first. When he was a boy growing up in Brooklyn, circus had seemed distant and a little seedy. He was active in the new Hopkins Center at Dartmouth, was a stage manager for Julia Child, and went to Columbia Business School. Armed with first-rate management skills, he became a street juggler. In 1973 he went to Europe. "I had majored in medieval history at Dartmouth, and the region's past was something I couldn't get out of my blood,'' he once wrote in a report to his class. "I wanted to explore those places we read about in John Williams's class—Rome and Paris and Florence—with my own eyes and ears." He traveled from London t.o Paris to Istanbul and back to Paris. Juggling earned him pocket money.
It was at the Casino de Paris, a classic, small European circus, that he found his calling. Hired with partner Michael Christensen as a two-person juggling act, he left the ring determined to found a circus of his own. The Big Apple got its start in 1976 and, in 1980, affiliated with New York's Lincoln Center. In 1988, Dartmouth gave him. an honorary doctorate of fine arts.
Binder brings the circus to Hanover every summer, where, in the intimacy of the tent, students and, families get to see an art that had once died in America. .
"I call it the theater of aspirations," Binder once told a reporter. "Our dreams, when dreamt with nature, do come true. The man on the wire is really walking, the woman who flies through the air really flies. They are real people doing extraordinary things, revealing human possibilities.' If we compose circus correctly, everybody flies."
We asked noted photographer Stephanie Wolff to spend parts of two summers taking pictures of the Big Apple in Hanover. And then we asked Paul Binder to write the captions.
We hope the results show what thousands of Big Apple spectators have seen: that Paul Binder and his troupe have composed circus correctly.
The Editors
The Big Apple Circus is more than just a performance space. It's an open and dynamic community that embraces everyone who comes into the site. Marie-Pierre Benac, above, is one of the most dedicated circus artists of all time. In nine years with us she created 11 different acts in three genres, acrobatic, ' equestrian, and aerial. After the warmup you, see here, she would go into the ring and do a double somersault on the barre.
Cucciolo is a classic circus artist who happens to be a dog. He lives at home as a pet, gets walked on a leash, then, in the show, among other things, he walks down a flight of stairs on his front paws.
Good classical circus blurs the line between artists and audience. These two are from the audience. The theme that year was "Carnavale in Venice," where nobody is just a spectator.
Classical circus is theater, celebration, and ritual rooted in ancient beliefs. Our Crystal Harlequin represented the "spirit of the circus." He is a magical character. Real magic not prestidigitation or sleight of hand, the magic we feel when our spirit is aligned with the forces of nature. The soaring Hanover pines in the background serve to punctuate that sense.
Johnny Peers is a clown, even back- stage. All 17 of his dogs were rescued from pounds. Now they're all circus stars and have good jobs, and I think each one of them has a different agent.
John and lack Lepiarz. Truly good clowns invariably have a look of human depth. "Mr. Fish" is no exception. On the other hand, he's not as old as he looks here; we needed an "aged mad scientist" for that year's theme.
Elephants are so beloved, I think, because they combine awesome strength with surprising gentleness and delicacy, which they express among themselves as well as humans. Amy, the elephant on the left, is four years old in this picture. For the creature in the photo at right, age lines get deeper every year, but slowing down is nearly impossible. The only answer is more makeup.
