They took on controversial shapes, from Albino pygmies to Arab sheiks, which epitomized their era’s view of “otherness.” Circus artists did all of this for the entertainment of family audiences. Circus performers engaged in death-defying activity and conjured fascinating and logic-defying feats. ETHEL performed the world premiere of Wandering City at the Ringling Museum in January 2018, on the 250th anniversary of the modern circus in America. The project gained urgency when Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that it would close in May 2017. ETHEL started developing Wandering City in 2015 in workshops in New York City and at The Hermitage Artist Retreat (FL). ETHEL and gathered a team of creatives who were inspired to tell the story of the circus in a way that celebrates the anticipation, sweat, fortitude, joy, and transcendence of so many lives under the tent. Museum staff reached out to ETHEL with the idea of collaboration. The genesis for Circus: Wandering City lies in the vast archives of The Ringling Museum in Sarasota.

The show combines electrifying new music by ETHEL with stunning images and interviews drawn from the Museum’s magnificent archives, which document the wonder and excitement of one of America’s most iconographic popular culture experiences. Circus is family, and this family of artists shows us that strength and grace are not mutually exclusive, that human limitations can be overcome, and that our differences are beautiful and to be celebrated.Ĭreated as an evening-length multimedia experience, Wandering City was commissioned by the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota, with additional support from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Thrilling, funny, and heartbreaking, Wandering City is the compelling human story of the circus illuminated through evocative music, stunning images, and the voices of artists past and present who spent most their lives under the Big Top. “To be different, and to be the best, and to be unique, is what it’s really all about.” - Pedro Reis, aerialistĬircus: Wandering City conjures the magic and mystery of the circus through the eyes and voices of the extraordinary artists who embody the stuff of dreams – to fly to move mountains to tame nature to dance on air to defy death.

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