For more than eight years since founding Wellington’s Fuse Circus, Tom Beauchamp has been entertaining audiences and developing his craft.
Beauchamp, 40, describes himself as a “jack of all trades”, equally at home performing on high from a rope, known as “corde lisse”, or on the ground displaying his clowning skills. He has a bachelor degree in sculpture and a masters in theatre directing, but has never had any formal training in the circus arts.
This “jack of all trades” attitude has also put Beauchamp in the position of organising New Zealand’s first circus competition, The Golden Carnie Awards, in Wellington on Saturday, at which 20 acts from around New Zealand will vie for four categories, including a grand prize.
Unlike some industry award shows, The Golden Carnie Awards have been tailored to also appeal to the public, providing them with a chance to view 20 Kiwi circus acts in one evening.
Practitioners describe what they do as “new” or “contemporary” circus’. That is, animal-free performances influenced by European and theatre traditions, rather than the traditional American-style circus shows. The best known and most successful is Canada’s Cirque du Soleil.
Beauchamp says the circus community having its own awards is another sign of the growth of new circus.
“It would have been unthinkable to do something like this when I first started out,” he says. “Slowly but surely audience perceptions of contemporary circus are changing as well. It’s not about animals and scary clowns.”
Fuse Circus has collaborated with established companies, including Wellington’s Footnote Dance, which is also participating in the awards. Beauchamp says a recent example of its growth was performing at the opening of an All Blacks test in Dunedin in the city’s new roofed stadium. “We did aerial bungy stuff off the roof of the stadium. In New Zealand that’s about as big as you can get.”
But Beauchamp knows traditional circus is still popular and says it still has a place. It may be that some of the acts taking part in the awards acknowledge some aspects of traditional circus in what they do, he says. “It has a fantastic lineage and a fantastic history. [What we do] is not about rejecting the past and going off into artistic navel-gazing. It’s seeing how it influences now.”
Beauchamp says the number of people taking part in circus has grown over the past decade. It is now outside the main centres and has spread throughout the country. In some places it’s only one or two individuals learning the craft – “that’s all it takes to start up a few classes” – while in others groups have sprung up to create circus companies.
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While he doesn’t have specific figures, Beauchamp says he is aware of at least a dozen circus groups in New Zealand. These also include the influential Wellington Circus Trust, which offers classes for preschoolers to adults in several circus arts, including trapeze, aerial and juggling.
Beauchamp says the existence of training organisations like the trust has seen a rise in the quality of performers and a new generation coming through. “It’s great to see that the kids now, who started off when they were 8 or 9 when they were first doing circus, are now teenagers who are up there and as good as if not better than we are now. For the first time in New Zealand there is systematic training for youth.”
The awards show will feature 20 acts. Most will be a solo performer and the competition has been limited to no more than three people in each entry. The four award categories are youth, best ground-based act, best aerial act and best overall act.
Beauchamp also hopes the awards can grow and in future include a few acts from Australia. “It is very much a public show. It’s a real showcase. The X Factor of New Zealand circus.
“Hopefully it is going to keep growing and developing over years. WOW [World of WearableArt Awards] started in a shed in Nelson so who knows what the Golden Carnies will turn into in the years from now.”
THE DETAILS
The Golden Carnie Awards, Opera House, Wellington, Saturday, 7.30pm.
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