Next Door Circus Magazine Next Door Circus Magazine No.1 | Page 10

That shift was key for me. Once you manage to put one element
of the traditional circus recipe into question, nothing can be automatic anymore. Or, in other words, everything is a choice: not
just the performance quality, but also the pacing, the structure,
the visual aesthetic, the context of the presentation, down to the
essential goal of the piece. The possibilities are endless!
In the States, it is hard to convince people that performance
that is not primarily “exciting” is worth anything at all. The ultimate indicator of success or failure is ticket sales. So then when
you’re making a show, everything becomes about how to keep
people from getting bored—I think it has something to do with
how expensive it is to go to the theatre in the States. People demand full sensory-overload catharsis (“bang for your buck”). But
when someone looks like they’re trying to entertain me, I feel
more embarrassed than anything else. I try to avoid eye contact. It’s the worst feeling! So obviously the American formula is
not for everyone. I’m not suggesting that circus should become
boring—that would be terrible as well!—just that when the goal
of every show is the same, every show begins to look the same.
I came to Europe in 2012, and I plan on building my career here.
It’s a little bit less consumerist, and so people have permission to
be people and not commodities on stage. And you can feel history on the street. And it’s so different everywhere! That part of
the reason it’s so thrilling to be coming to Riga—I’m really looking
forward to getting to know new people and a new culture.
I started writing Manor House with Natalie Oleinik in the
winter of 2013. We had both been in Europe for less than
a year, but we were already so excited by the new circus
we had seen since being here that making a show
together seemed imperative. We feel like we really
have something unique to contribute. Although
obviously I haven’t seen everything that’s out there!
We’re going to make a piece that gathers, like a cloud.
Our goal is a steady crescendo of ambiance until it
reaches critical storm-mass. The show inspired by
our suburban American childhoods, and feeling like
something is wrong or weird but not knowing
what, like the terrible truth is hidden just out of
sight. But it’s going to be very non-literal—
I don’t think it’s even going to look like suburbia,
especially. It takes place in the fantasy world of a
dissatisfied suburban teenager, so what actually
happens on stage will probably be as far away
from the reality of suburbia as he or she can
manage to conceive! All of that said, we are yet to
have our first real creation period. To make a show
in Europe, you really have to plan far ahead! The first s
tage was all the writing and picture taking, which is
strange when you haven’t actually started to figure the
show out with your body yet. But you need it to get s
pace to do the research! So we wrote a show dossier, and
illustrated it nicely, and sent it out to residency spaces to
create a rehearsal calendar. Our first version was twelve
pages of artistic explanation followed by short
biographies, and that did not work at all. My advice
is to emphasize the CV and then sketch out your
show in broad terms. These spaces want to know
mostly that they can trust you to make work and
that you have an interesting approach. Writing
a ton about the show before just paints you
into a corner.

We’ll go into creation in November
or December, and hopefully première in the fall! It’s all very unpredictable, but also extremely exciting!
And although we don’t really know
what the content of the show will
be—except in the broadest way—
it’s been brewing inside us for long
enough that whatever comes out
is bound to be strangely delicious.
And we want to bring it everywhere!
So hopefully we can show it to Riga
audience. We come from a place
where circus is really disadvantaged, so we’re making it a priority to
bring our work as far afield as possible. We’re really looking forward to
coming to Latvia!
by Māra Pāvula