Female Funambulists
In 2018 we celebrated the 250th year of the Circus in the UK, with events across the nation including, live circus performance, exhibitions, lectures and more. 'Female Funambulists' was our response - a collaboration of female artists from diverse disciplines responding to original poetry by myself and images, video and music by Shirley Harris (Vanitas Arts).
A combined media project, Female Funambulists reimagined the astonishing and dramatic lives of 19th and 20th century female circus performers. Using live theatre, poetry, music and film, our aim was to transport audiences into the Big Top to meet Human Cannon Ball, Zazel, Crocodile Enchantress, Koringa, Tiger Tamer, Mabel Stark, Woman of Steel, Kate Sandwina, Bee Whisperer, Patty Astley, the mysterious Lulu and more.
"The show was a real treat! Chloe's poems are a delight. So clever to conjure up these amazing women with their weird and wonderful acts. Great performances, stunning costumes and images, fascinating footage of old circus acts and some beautiful and varied art work in the accompanying exhibition."
"A fantastic show, I couldn't stop smiling!"
"An eye opener. I'd never heard of these amazing performers, they deserve to be celebrated!"
femalefunambulists.weebly.com
vanitasarts.co.uk
Upstart Jugglers
They were actresses and acrobats,
paupers and upstart jugglers, girls who
sought difference and found it in circus.
They were ‘Raries’, disfigured, disabled,
displayed as ‘freaks of nature', taking
community over comfort. Younger
and older, surviving to their thirties,
fifties, eighties, liberated, captive,
Toms or single, married with children.
Diminutive, demanding, they hung
without harness from Roman rings,
paced high wires, rode bareback,
trained tigers and lions, were daring
subversives, Queens of the Ring.
In 2018 we celebrated the 250th year of the Circus in the UK, with events across the nation including, live circus performance, exhibitions, lectures and more. 'Female Funambulists' was our response - a collaboration of female artists from diverse disciplines responding to original poetry by myself and images, video and music by Shirley Harris (Vanitas Arts).
A combined media project, Female Funambulists reimagined the astonishing and dramatic lives of 19th and 20th century female circus performers. Using live theatre, poetry, music and film, our aim was to transport audiences into the Big Top to meet Human Cannon Ball, Zazel, Crocodile Enchantress, Koringa, Tiger Tamer, Mabel Stark, Woman of Steel, Kate Sandwina, Bee Whisperer, Patty Astley, the mysterious Lulu and more.
"The show was a real treat! Chloe's poems are a delight. So clever to conjure up these amazing women with their weird and wonderful acts. Great performances, stunning costumes and images, fascinating footage of old circus acts and some beautiful and varied art work in the accompanying exhibition."
"A fantastic show, I couldn't stop smiling!"
"An eye opener. I'd never heard of these amazing performers, they deserve to be celebrated!"
femalefunambulists.weebly.com
vanitasarts.co.uk
Upstart Jugglers
They were actresses and acrobats,
paupers and upstart jugglers, girls who
sought difference and found it in circus.
They were ‘Raries’, disfigured, disabled,
displayed as ‘freaks of nature', taking
community over comfort. Younger
and older, surviving to their thirties,
fifties, eighties, liberated, captive,
Toms or single, married with children.
Diminutive, demanding, they hung
without harness from Roman rings,
paced high wires, rode bareback,
trained tigers and lions, were daring
subversives, Queens of the Ring.
Below: Madame Sosostris, image courtesy of Vanitas Arts
Madame Sosostris’ Daughter
They claimed me Mam were a fella, but women
get that don’t they? When we do well or ‘ave a bob.
I never knew a father, nor saw her naked neither –
before central ‘eating, inside felt like outside,
colder even. Whatever she were, she believed
in learning, always reading, declaring things.
She had big ‘ands, strong fingers, lots o’ rings,
could talk with lads lost in the war. She had
a gift that were normal to us –Tarot on table,
‘er a bit pale coming round from a trance.
The stints she done down Margate she wore
scarves, gold hoops. It were expected, see.
She met a lot of famous folk, hungry for scraps,
Eliot were one of ‘em and she marked him good.
It were ‘im what called her Madame Sosostris,
to everyone else, she were plain Ma Future.
She’d found ‘im gloomy, reluctant to talk,
and he never had them cards what he said!
After me brother died she made a death mask,
that’s it there –spooks me still so I keep it hid,
he were only thirty so we was shocked to bits.
Might sound strange but she’d never read ‘is cards
nor mine either. She were afraid I guess,
the way the world is, who’d want to know?
Below: Kate Seneviratne Wheatley as Maria Spelterini, the courageous Italian funambulist (tight rope walker), who in 1876, at age 24, became the first woman to cross Niagara Falls without a safety net .
This photograph was taken by Shirley Harris (Vanitas Arts) at an exhibition of paintings by artist and sculptor Phil Cole,
www.philcoleartwork.co.uk whose paintings of tight rope walkers inspired my poem, 'Advice for Female Funambulists' below:
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Advice for Female Funambulists Determine your base of support. Centre your body directly above, feet parallel in the sagittal plane. Sway is lateral, ankles pivotal. Prolong the moment of inertia, with umbrella or fan as balcony tool. Escalate fascination – be a young Italian in 1876, walking the Niagara Gorge at the Whirlpool Rapids. Dress in scarlet tunic and sea green buskins with leather soles soft enough to shoe a newborn. Perform on a wire the diameter of a child’s wrist. Cross and re-cross, blindfolded, shackled in chains, your feet in peach baskets, forwards to Canada, backwards to America, without rotating once. Delight Kaiser Wilhelm at Berlin’s Winter Gardens. Walk between towers at St Jacques de Compostelle. Continue for a week before open-mouthed multitudes, then without valediction, quite simply disappear. Prove yourself equal to your predecessors, Farrini, Bellini, Blondin. You may claim domestic freedom but keep the personal private. Confide in no one, charm your critics and so subvert the gossip’s lash. Above all, do not marry three times, die destitute or at the hand of a lover. Take advice from Messieurs Garnier and Le Roux – to sustain your equilibrium and forestall a fatal tumble, eschew love altogether. |
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