Toronto isn’t known as a circus town, at least not compared to Montreal, which is home to the National Circus School and the internationally renowned Cirque du Soleil. But T.O. is carving out a niche on the circus map as this weekend’s 8th annual International Circus Festival at Harbourfront will make crystal clear. The three-day HarbourKIDS: CIRCUS is co-produced by Toronto’s own Zero Gravity Circus, a company that’s been operating in an old Vaudeville house on Gerrard Street East for the past five years. When it’s not in use by circus professionals, the Centre of Gravity Theatre (1300 Gerrard Street) operates after-school circus classes for youngsters from 4 – 6 pm; tweens and teens take over the space after that. Proteges of the school, dubbed the Canadian National Youth Circus (ages 9 – 13), perform on the Harbourfront mainstage each day at noon. There are also all-day sessions called You Can Try It Circus where curious kids can have a go at juggling, stilt walking, even aerial hoop and silk tricks.
“After they discover for themselves how hard it is, the kids will be even more impressed when they see the Youth Circus,” states Centre of Gravity coach Jen Georgopoulos, above, herself an accomplished aerial acrobat and alumnus of Cirque du Soleil. Her companion in the photo is professional clown Foo (Helen Donnelly), who co-hosts the mainstage shows with her diva sidekick Chandeleirva (Suzette Araujo).
“The idea of clown is to return to childhood,” explains the Toronto-based Donnelly. “Clowning is the art of highlighting those things that come easily and naturally to us and also those things that we’d prefer to hide. It’s about being proud of revealing yourself to the audience, authentically. I think we need to get away from the idea that anyone can clown, I don’t believe that. Clowning requires training, really solid training.”
Donnelly has also performed with Cirque du Soleil and trained with Mump & Smoot, and other top coaches. She observes that TV is rife with clowns: “I think the real clown on The Simpsons is Homer, not Crusty,” she says, “because Homer doesn’t learn from his mistakes. Kramer from Seinfeld is a clown, Mr. Bean is a clown; there are a lot of great modern examples of beautiful clowning. Lucille Ball was a clown, Laurel and Hardy were clowns. There are lots of clowns who have nothing to do with the Barnum and Bailey-style, birthday clown, which only came about in the last 60 years or so. Those clowns have really chipped away at the art form.”
Georgopoulos, who was a competitive gymnast before she discovered circus, notes that “there’s a right way and a wrong way to do a trick but no rules about how to present it. Once you’ve learned how to do something, then you can really make it your own and that’s where the magic is. That’s one reason circus training is so great for kids with a lot of energy; there are so many different things to try in circus that they’re bound to be good at something. And it’s endless how good you can become at it.”
Basic skills aside, not everybody can summon Georgopoulos’s infectious passion. “You have to be passionate about it,” she says. “With circus, if you don’t love it, you’d be crazy to do it because it hurts and it’s a lot of work and it’s dangerous. And if you don’t LOVE it, it shows, the audience can see it.”
There will be no shortage of passion at Harbourfront this weekend and the entire affair is free.
Photos by Christopher Jones, big top shot courtesy of Zero Gravity Circus
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