It’s, whaddya call it, an avant-garde circus

Last weekend Zellerbach Hall hosted three shows by a circus group from Montreal called Les 7 Doigts de la Main. The name of the show was “Psy.” It featured 11 performers doing various circusy things — juggling, teeterboard, trapeze, pole. It was directed and choreographed by Shana Carroll, who has won awards and stuff.

Yeah, my younger daughter’s circus came to town. Imagine my happiness.

I liked the show very much, but of course I would. I have no way of getting around my subjective approach to anything created by either daughter. I can say that the audiences stood at the end of both shows that we went to, and there was capacious cheering and glad cries of “Yay.”

The whole show was presented by Cal Performances, which did a bang-up job with the little theater company that could. Les 7 Doigts has lagged behind in the merchandising department, so there were no T-shirts or CDs for sale, but if there had been, I’m sure they would have been going faster than hotcakes at a lumberjack festival.

Circus is such a mysterious art form. It is famously hard to catch on film, so there’s not much record left of the great acts of the past. The tradition actually lives in the bodies of all the performers, who were taught something by someone who was taught something, and the tradition continues.

I got involved with the Pickle Family Circus many years ago and for a while sat on its board. I became aware how severe the physical toll is on the performers, that it’s an enormous amount of work to make something so hard look effortless. Circus lore is practical — it tells you how to endure the boredom that inevitably comes with perfecting a skill.

The Pickles came to a somewhat messy end, although everyone remained friends, but its influence was seminal. Without the Pickle Family Circus, there would be no San Francisco Circus School. The Pickle Family Circus gave Bill Irwin and Geoff Hoyle their starts. The Pickles are where Shana, who also started there, met Gypsy Snider, and began talking to her about circus — a dialogue that continues more than two decades later as part of the 7 Fingers conversation.

San Francisco circus royalty showed up for “Psy,” which was nice. Judy Finelli was there one afternoon, and Mr. Lu Yi showed up with his family on opening night. It was sort of old home week for us, with Pickle people and other friends and surprise guests.

You know those shows where you mill in the lobby and you don’t know anyone? This was not one of those shows.

After the last performance, Shana was called up onstage, and the cast applauded her, and everyone in the audience cheered some more. I can kvell about this, yes? She looked so happy. I talked to her later, and she was glad she came out for those shows. Already, she is back in Montreal.

The conceit of “Psy” is that each of the performers is afflicted with some mental illness, and their acts somehow tie into the illness. Sometimes that’s hard to tease out, but it’s there. A window into the choreographer’s heart? Not that I could see.

This business of looking at your child’s artwork the way you would look at other artwork is just too slippery. I can’t get my brain around it. Before each new show I steel myself, afraid I won’t like it, afraid the audience won’t like it. But then — well, either she does good work or I’m just blind. Objective evidence suggests that she does good work, but as I say …

These were the last performances for “Psy,” being retired after three years of going around North America and Europe. The last show was taped professionally, but it’ll be a record for archivists, not something that could be shown on television. That’s also true of the Pickle Family Circus shows. I suspect the Mime Troupe is in a similar position.

Shana already has another show, “Sequence 8,” up and running in France. That one she did with her husband, Sebastien Soldevila, who is of course also my son-in-law. You are aware that your daughters should not try to please you when selecting a mate, but it is ever so pleasant when it works out that way. He was out for the shows, too, and also granddaughter Satie, now 4.

Satie spent some time over at our house so Shana and Seb could get some work done. She really enjoyed jumping off the arm of the couch and landing on the pillows — just like her mama.

In which we exhibit a justified paternal pride, and people fly in the air.