Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie

Author:Scott McCredie [MCCREDIE, SCOTT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316076586
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2009-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Extreme Equilibrium

You watch Unus standing on one finger and you think, “Look at such a fine, intelligent and excellent man making his living standing on one finger when most of us can’t even stand on our feet.”

— ERNEST HEMINGWAY, FROM AN ESSAY WRITTEN FOR THE PROGRAM OF THE 1953 RINGLING BROTHERS AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS

Measured by any test you might care to devise, professional ballet dancers and ice skaters possess exceptional balance. So do top-level skiers, surfers, and gymnasts, as well as seasoned players of every kind of ball game known to our ball-obsessed species. But there’s no better place in the world to observe the full panoply of balance prowess—by humans as well as other creatures—than a good ol’ fashioned circus.

At the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, clowns juggle while riding unicycles, dance on stilts, balance baseball caps on their noses and chairs on their chins, or climb freestanding ladders that tip over while they’re on top. The horse trainer–contortionist balances on a ring suspended far above the floor. Animals get into the act, too: a row of elephants all standing on their hind legs, with their front legs resting on the flanks of the animal in front of them; sheepdogs who walk backward on their two hind legs; horses kneeling down on one leg as if “bowing” to the audience. Most circus performers are balance artists almost by definition.

In fact, several founders of the earliest modern circuses were performers themselves whose acts highlighted their extraordinary balance. The circus as we know it today was created in England in the late 1700s by a twenty-five-year-old entrepreneur who had just retired from His Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Light Dragoons. His name was Sergeant Major Philip Astley. As a dragoon, or cavalryman, he had won fame as a trick rider. Early in his career, while practicing with his regiment, he so astonished commoners who watched him ride that he was thought to be “the devil in disguise,” according to one account. He was seen riding “full speed standing upon his horse and leap[ing] off and mount[ing] again without the horse slackening his pace.” This test of balance was followed by one even more diabolical: as his horse cantered around in a circle, Astley stood “upon his head with his heels in the air.” 1

After retiring at a tender age, Astley began a second career as a showman, charging audiences a small sum to witness his equestrian prowess as he and his riding students performed on a small field in London. The popularity of his horse shows allowed him to move into ever more sophisticated arenas. As the money rolled in, these venues began to look as ornate and regal as opera houses, as though King George himself might be sitting in one of the several levels of balconies that surrounded the circular stage, on which Astley and his wife, also an accomplished rider, rode their steeds.

Engravings from the period feature horses circling the ring at a thunderous pace, chandeliers blazing overhead.

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