Feats of the human spirit
Nimble Arts Circus swings into New London
For Serenity Smith Forchion, part owner of Nimble Arts Circus, there’s great enjoyment to be had from the surface level of her art form — the physical performance — but there are always deeper layers to explore.
Smith Forchion says, “I was performing a dance trapeze act, and I had chosen to dedicate it to my husband and children. I chose this song by Nina Simone, ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.’ That dance could have just looked like a fun thing for the audience to see, but the act took on a different meaning for me since my children are biracial.”
So, when Smith Forchion swung in a tangle of fabrics hanging from the ceiling and captivated an audience, her performance was not simply a display of skill. The complexity of that act sprung from her choice of song, “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free.” The horn section, the abrupt introduction of the jazz kit drums, and the spirit of the music, how it excites the listener quickly, could easily be mistaken as an expression of joy. Whereas, with the absorption of the song’s social justice orientation, any excitement felt from this song is meant instead to represent a pent-up feeling of anticipation. Like many art forms, circus can seem deceivingly simple in its display but can be complicated and full of meaning.
The Nimble Arts Circus, founded by identical twin artists Elsie Smith and Smith Forchion, is based out of Brattleboro, Vermont, and works with a rotating cast of performers.
Coming to New London this weekend, the circus will bring trapeze artists, clowns, jugglers, acrobats, aerial silk and hand balancing acts, along with many other performers and performances for their Sunday shows. These performances, according to Smith Forchion, will be “fun, funny, upbeat feats of the human body and feats of the human spirit.”
The Nimble Arts Circus has performed in New London annually since 2010, which adds a bit of consistency to their busy schedule of international travel.
The term “circus,” for Smith Forchion, is multifaceted. Throughout this vast art form, physicality is the most common denominator — feats of the body make up the majority of circus acts. So, for this art form to take on meaning, to express a thought or convey a feeling, it is up to the body to generate that significance.
“You might be a tight rope walker who’s physically reserved, versus a trampoline artist who has to have explosive movements. There’s such diversity to what the body can do, and circus is so broad — maybe I want to tell a story, but I’m on a trapeze,” Smith Forchion says.
Often, in order for these artists’ acts to convey meaning, they use various elements. Like Smith Forchion, trapeze performer Victoria Quine chooses music that will convey some intended significance of the performance. Quine says about her choice in music, “From Eden” by Hozier, “There’s a line in the song, ‘I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door,’ that really brought to mind this vivid image of coming to a friend’s house before they’re even home and just sitting, waiting for them because they are (symbolic of) home, a safe, secure place to be away from the rest of the world.” Whether or not the various extra elements make these artists’ intentions obvious to the audience is beside the point. Circus is a performance art, so any strategy that the performer can employ to strengthen their emotional bond to their act is beneficial.
So Quine’s understanding of Hozier’s lyrics, the emotion that her understanding triggers, combined with the physical performance of her act will help create meaning. Especially because this act will be Quine’s first performance since an undisclosed traumatizing illness, surgery, and a long period of convalescing, feeling home, safe and secure is largely what this performance will be about for her. It is her return to her comfort zone. Even though it may be hard to imagine aerial acrobatics feeling comfortable, for her, it is her version of normal life.
Because circus is largely viewed as a spectacle, the meaning that these artists often intend to convey is mostly private. For Smith Forchion, art is a very personal thing, and she has no expectations of what the audience should get from the experience.
“I simply offer my own version of what they might get. Live performance is ephemeral, existing only the moment it is done,” she says. “It is more real to the audience in each of their memories and interpretations than it is for me. We can’t view it together like a painting, or read it over and over like a book. It is there, shared, belongs to the viewer more than me, and is gone.”