Wednesday, December 06, 2023
Normalizing Rescue Plans within the Circus Community
circustalk.com: In my 18 years working in circus-styled live entertainment, I remain perplexed at how many circus performers find it unsettling to prepare for emergency situations. I have found a common mindset from circus performers to be “If you speak of it, it will come to fruition” and, in turn, rescue training and emergency preparedness are often seen as self-fulfilling prophecies.
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As someone interested in technical direction, I found this article very interesting and important. I find myself constantly thinking about possible things that could go wrong and how to fix them in case they do. In a show I stage managed over the summer, we had a revolve that was quite prone to breaking. There was one scene that it was vital for, and we used it for several other scenes that it was not as important for earlier in the show. I worried about it breaking in one of these earlier scenes, so I made the plan that if it did, the blocking of a later scene would be changed slightly for the crew to fix the revolve. This, unfortunately, ended up happening, but we were luckily prepared with a backup plan, and the issue managed to be fixed without having to hold the show, and the audience did not notice at all. While the stakes here weren't as high as described in the article, the importance of planning for things going wrong remains. It is a very useful thing to do, and while it occasionally may be overpreparing, it is much better to have a plan when one is needed than be left thinking fully on your feet.
Accidents happen all the time everywhere. Not just in live entertainment, though the pressure seems to add an extra layer of accident proneness to our industry and so special measures need to take place. In the circus, an accident could mean the difference between life and death. Which makes these plans even more crucial. Normalizing rescue plans within the circus community is an essential step in promoting safety for everyone involved from the audience to the trapeze artists. The nature of circus performances involves various acrobatic and aerial acts, making it crucial to have specific measures in place to handle emergencies. Everyone should know what to do in each possible situation and be able to execute it well. Of course, you can’t plan for everything but putting some extra thought into plans like this, especially when the stakes are so high means that lives could be saved. This was a great article to read, it is clear that this is a conversation that hasn’t just begun but may be far from over.
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