In search for the rhythm of circus

Lina B. Frank

I’m someone who loves to search for interesting and exciting questions and hypotheses. The Circosonic project started with a series of public discussions on various ways of thinking about ‘circus and sound’ and those discussions raised question in my head. For example:   

Can I find circus in nature? 
How could the ideal circus space be built acoustically to nurture well-being whilst training?
Does circus culture sound?
 Can sound be the protagonist in a circus performance?

The question which I got most inspired by was to attempt finding the rhythm of circus. I thought about an episode from the podcast Radiolab about “science in the modern world” which explores and attempts to find the speeds of cities, and I thought if I used similar processes to document movement via sound, I could find a rhythm of circus. I started seeing rhythms everywhere and tried to find the circus in those rhythms.

What makes a circus rhythm as opposed to a non-circus rhythm?
What types of circus rhythms are there?
What do various circus disciplines and circus culture have in common rhythm-wise – if anything?
Rhythms of disciplines, rhythms of movement, rhythms of talking, rhythms of equipment etc etc. could I somehow find an algorithm in a beat which could be translated into other mediums?

We are circus thinkers, and approaching creation as such, therefore in my next phase of exploration I attempted to use thinking and association games to search for circus in rhythms. I wrote nonsense poetry, because nonsense poetry can reveal statues of the subconscious. I played association games and followed a rhythm to create poems attempting to find circus in them. A few of the poems…

Rhythm is a pattern
Pattern is a series
Series is pattern
A pattern is traceable
A trace is a remainder
A remainder is a reminder
A reminder is a sign
A sign

A rhythm is a sequence
A sequence is a transmission
A transmission is a message
A message is communication
A communication is dialogue
A dialogue

A circle is a loop
A loop is a hole
A hole is dark
Darkness is comforting
Comfort is reassuring
Reassurance is welcoming
A welcome
A circus is welcome

A circus is a community
A community is a group
A group is a collection
A collection is a conscious choice
A conscious choice is selective
Selection is exclusive
Exclusivity is damning
Damnation is evil
Evil is subjective
Subjection

I didn’t feel I quite succeeded, but I realised that notating circus in a different form could perhaps reveal something more abstract and more easily interpretable. When I was a dance student at a younger age I was inspired by different forms of dance notation, Rudolf Laban’s methods being the most well-known. I watched numerous videos on youtube of various disciplines and attempted to find a way to document them, to create a trace. As this is an investigation into circus and sound I attempted to make a score which could be linear with a start and end, like a sound score and I developed a way of transcribing routines for different disciplines.

The drawings, or scores are interesting in themselves, but I’ve also, in this project, realised just how reliant we are on vision (the ability to see or visuals) in circus. The project has really drawn my attention to what remains of circus when all visual elements, or the ability to see, is removed.
Is the sound of circus also circus?

I became interested to see if my scores could be translated into sound so that we could listen to the disciplines and perhaps find rhythms that way. And this is what happened. I transcribed a lot of circus routines through more or less random videos on youtube and in the end was happy with two which I asked composer Johan Stertman to translate to music in his medium – classical piano. I didn’t give Johan any info on what the disciplines were, all he knew was that they were notations of circus disciplines to interpret like a score.

This is what he has to say about the process:

Johan Stertman

I had the privilege to contribute to the Circosonic project. In short, Lina B. Frank created two line-drawings based on her interpretation of a specific circus discipline. Without telling me what circus-discipline each drawing represented, I composed music for that discipline. In this text I will try to explain my process of writing the music.

Initial approach

From Lina’s line-drawings I guessed what circus-discipline she had depicted. I tried to interpret the underlying meaning, rhythm, energy and characteristics of the lines. I wanted to try to capture the energy behind a certain body-movement, or a collection of movements, or relationship with the body/bodies which makes up the specific discipline. My thought was that each circus-discipline has a certain resonance with certain universal human characteristics. Can a listener experience a circus-discipline through music, or at least feel/make sense of the underlying human qualities? Is it possible to communicate what discipline the music represents to a circus-artist? Can I do this by amplifying the qualities of the discipline?

So I attempted to compose music that enhances the ‘inherent’ resonance of the specific discipline. The music could hopefully become a condensation of my imagination of the energy from this discipline. So the challenge I posed myself was, how do I convey the certain characteristics of these circus-disciplines to the circus artists?

The imperfect mirror – music for partner acrobatics

I interpret the first line-drawing as partner acrobatics. For me it looked like a reflection, it’s almost the same but not quite. When I think about a partner acrobatics performance this is what comes to mind: intimacy, safety, trust in the other, shifting weight, closeness, supporting, mystery, letting go / holding on, grounded.

What I explored while writing this music is the relationship the acrobats have with each other. Humans reflect themselves into another person – like a mirror – and this reflection is skewed, incomplete and inaccurate. We are, imperfect, flawed, and often traumatized, but through love and care for each other, overcoming this hindrance and still choose to trust the other person’s imperfect reflection and allow this to guide us. It’s about trust. So the music tries to create a safe space, it’s an intimate and gentle conversation between the two.

The music is split up into three sections – A1, B, A2. First and last sections, A1 and A2, are almost identical but in different keys, starting in F major and ending in Db major. To somehow indicate that emotionally going through the B section we have changed, been reflected or transported. The A section is very much a safe place, an expression of tenderness and care. Next, the B section that follows is more dynamic and involves more movement. The music is still very careful. It starts a questioning, repeating itself to see if change happens. Then the A section comes back and we find ourselves we’re we started, but now in a new key. The same but changed.

After the music was delivered to Lina she told me that the drawing was actually intended to represent aerial silks.

Here is the sheet music to the composition, or you can listen to the recording below:

Pendulum – music for trapeze

I interpret this second line-drawing as a trapeze-performance. When I had sent the composition to Lina she told me my guess was correct! The smooth rhythmic lines go from left to right in a repeating manner, indicating a swinging feeling, in the drawing there is occasional variation in the smoothness of the lines, with certain squiggly lines indicating tricks and the body of the artist moving on and around the trapeze. The frequency and depth of the swinging also grow and recede with a sense of gravity, and weight to it.

I imagine the trapeze-artist as a person with immense sense of courage, bravery and inner/outer strength. Capturing the audience’s attention with a sense of extreme focus, a feeling of “it’s now or never”, and exemplifying a series of jaw-dropping leaps of faith. This is a person who has mastered their own fear of falling by centering oneself and executing the performance with great focus, trust in one self’s ability and strength.

The dramaturgy of the trapeze-discipline is a slow escalating crescendo/accelerando. First there is a period of collecting the energy, focusing and building the tension up by gaining momentum. In the music there is a long build-up to the end, where the music changes energy. And then in one moment the circus artist needs to let go and use the internal feeling of leap of faith. To try to capture this sense of escalation I used it in the pacing of the musical dramaturgy. The start is slow and focused and it ends with a much more extroverted feeling. And I think this also resonates with this trapeze discipline. There is a constant rhythmic feel to the music which in a sense refers to the perpetual motion of the trapeze.

Here is the sheet music to the composition, or you can listen to the recording below:

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