Culture - Marco Marucci - Il Circo di Nando
T
he performers can be divided into a number
of large families: they are all sisters, sons or
cousins. All of them are offspring of artists:
some can boast lion-tamers in their family trees, others are clowns or great presenters. Lenny is the only
exception: his mother was a maths teacher while his
father was responsible for a large company and Lenny himself attained a diploma in accounting. But the
path he subsequently chose led him to Apollo circus.
There, he earned Elvio’s respect, who entrusted him
with the responsibility of the company accounts, and
moreover, of the artistic direction of the shows.
Elvio helped me to realize how difficult it was to carry
on this ancient art whilst making enough to also feed
the mouths of those who worked there. The golden
days are over, he says, and the circus must now deal
with a fast-moving culture and public opinion that
becomes less welcoming every day. The way that the
Italian circuses now function, performing in the good
old romantic style, with shows and performances
that have remained much the same since their inception years ago, is critical for their survival. Children are
The Travellist | Issue 3 | July 2015 p40
nowadays surrounded by a huge variety of information which they derive from TV shows, from movies,
from the internet. They are not used to simplicity anymore. Thus the performers have to find a new kind
of show to surprise and amuse them. Something different lest they become erased by the virtual world
of new media technologies. They cannot compete in
the same field of the unseen, the rare, the bizarre. It
is essential that they find their own new language of
expression.
The good old Nando passed away a few months ago.
Will the new generation of artists be able to set up a
new era of the Italian circus?
Marco Marucci
[email protected]
www.marcomarucci.com
tel: +39 320 0660863