Music Credits: Excerpt from “While She Sleeps Morning” from the EP Global composed and performed by The Lights Galaxia. Used courtesy of the Free Music Archive. <music up> Paul Binder: When we were building the Big Apple Circus, what we were focused on was not the commercial enterprise. We were focused on creating a cultural institution that would touch the hearts and souls of the audiences that we were performing for. Jo Reed: That was Paul Binder, co-founder of the Big Apple Circus. And this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. In early July, the National Endowment for the Arts held a Circus Town Hall. Cutting-edge performers, producers and creators from around the country came together to discuss circus as art. Not the spectacle of the three rings that have dominated American circus, but a smaller, intimate yet more intense experience of circus dedicated to theatrical excellence. This is a conversation former juggler and ringmaster Paul Binder has been trying to have for years. For most people, the dream is to join the circus. For Paul, the dream was to start a circus—and he did in 1977—the Big Apple Circus. It harkened back to an older form—a human-scale one ring circus where the audience is just ten or 15 feet away from the performers who amuse, thrill and awe them. With a singular focus on artistry, the Big Apple Circus invites its audience to share a deeply personal yet universal dream. It was quite a vision, but Paul Binder knew what he wanted. The question is how did he go about getting it? Paul Binder: Oh my. This is a tale told by an idiot, so of course I'll be happy to tell you. I learned how to juggle as part of training in the San Francisco Mime Troupe as part of our training, we did circus skills and I learned how to juggle. And that was the beginning of an incredible journey. We juggled with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Left the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Michael Christiansen and myself, and took a tour of the streets of Europe all the way from London to Istanbul juggling on the streets making our living that way. Now, remember, I was already in my 30s and I had two Ivy League degrees. You might ask, "What was my mother thinking?" Jo Reed: What was your mother thinking? Paul Binder: She thought I was out of my mind, I'm sure. And I think I was. Maybe in the best way possible. Jo Reed: What do you remember about that time, juggling throughout the streets of Europe? Paul Binder: Well, it was a great adventure, I must say, although there was a certain amount of trepidation at all times. It was extraordinary. We were doing something that people loved and were willing to put money in a hat and we were supporting ourselves by going from town to town and city to city. It was a great adventure and it opened up doors that I never imagined it would open up. And eventually we were recruited off the streets into a circus in France. It was an amazing journey. Jo Reed: OK, two part question: What circus did you join, and then I’d like you to compare European to American circuses. Paul Binder: Well, that circus was called the Nuevo Cirque du Paris, the New Circus of Paris, and we toured all over France with it. The big circle tour of France, but I think this brings me back to a very important moment, which is in this country I experienced circus and found it basically boring. When I was a kid, they said circus was dying. I mean, I'd hear that, and then when I was a teenager they said circus was dead and then I traveled to Europe and discovered no, circus wasn't dead at all. It was alive and it was thriving and it was being produced by families of artists in Europe. And having seen that I suddenly said, "Why don't we have this in America?" The experience of Nuevo Cirque du Paris, I came home and said, "We got to do something like this. It's wonderful. It's vital. The audience is responding with tremendous enthusiasm for this. They're laughing, they're screaming, they're applauding with delight, families young and old," and there was nothing like it in America. In America, circus was controlled by commercial enterprises and so they were not creating artistic work, whereas in Europe it was controlled by artist families. Yes, of course they had a run at his businesses, they did, but they survived all those years because they were touching audiences in a way that wasn't happening in this country. So, that was my great enlightenment about circuses. So I came back to New York with the notion that I would love to do something like this in New York, particularly, but in America, and indeed, that was the seed for The Big Apple Circus. Jo Reed: Okay. So, when we think of circus in America, obviously we think of Ringling Brothers. I mean, that's the first one that comes to mind, a three ring circus. That's not the European model. I mean, is it fair to say it's spectacle versus artistry? I know that's a very broad stroke. Paul Binder: But I think that's a fair characterization. Let's start with circus. The word circus, which means circle. It doesn't mean three circles. It means a circle. And indeed, the three ring circus was an invention of the Barnum era when they were touring circuses, circles and filling up the tent. It was the most popular form of entertainment from roughly the 1860s through late 1920s. It was enormously popular entertainment and they discovered that, well, they didn't have enough seats to accommodate the audience, and so they made the tents bigger and bigger and bigger and in order to accommodate this larger audience, they added rings. So, it no longer was a circle. That's how the three ring circus was invented. Again, it was a commercial decision, whereas in Europe they continued to create it as the original form. Jo Reed: To begin this smaller, intimate circus, you needed backing. Was that difficult to get? You were doing something that hadn’t been done here. Paul Binder: Well, I told a story that I’d love to recount. I encountered Jerome Robbins walking across the plaza at Lincoln Center, who, you know of course, was the choreographer of The King and I, which I saw as a kid and West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof, High Button Shoes. He was the Ballet Master of the New York City Ballet at that point. He said, “Paul, are you gonna have a flying act this year?” I looked and I thought, that’s Jerome Robbins. I’m saying to myself, that’s Jerome Robbins talking to me! And I said, “Oh, well, yes, same act as last year, the Flying Gaonas.” He said, “Oh, great.” Yeah, by the way, Jerry Robbins came to the Big Apple Circus every year when we were at Lincoln Center. And He said, "Do you get funded by the NEA or the New York State Council of the Arts?" I said, "Well, the New York State Council of the Arts funded us in our first year, but now the panel is saying we are not theater and they won't fund us." He said, "The fools, don't they understand that you're the original theater? You're the form that all of us grew out of?" And I said, "Well, I sort of know that, but would you be willing to say that to them?" And he did and they restored the funding. Jo Reed: Can you speak a little bit more about what Jerome Robbins said to you about the circus as the—what—the roots of performance? Paul Binder: Well, he pointed me toward the foundation of that kind of entertainment, which was the original tribal rituals in which the entire community, the tribe, would come together, form a circle and what would be acted out in that circle were the hopes and fears and aspirations of the community. And this was ritual performance. Never mind that the performers and the audience were one and the same. And what Jerry Robbins was pointing at was saying this was the original form out of which all of the performing arts grew. That was his statement. Whether it was theater or opera or ballet. And what he was saying is, "You are the closest thing to the original ritual form that all the rest of us grew out of." Well, pat myself on the back. I already had some grounding in that, but I went to the books, you know, and there it was. Indeed, Joseph Campbell was teaching up at Sarah Lawrence at the time was talking about that and artists were paying attention. I mean, the ritual form is what I'm talking about. Not the circus. But, Spielberg and Lucas and others were listening to what he was saying and a lot of their work grew out of what he was saying. All the Star Wars films were very much coming out of that same impulse. Jo Reed: In that same timeframe. Paul Binder: Indeed, I remember when we opened the Big Apple Circus the first year and I went to see Star Wars and I said, "Oh my God, how are we ever going to compete with that?" But, it turned out it wasn't a competitive issue. It was just another form. Jo Reed: Another facet. Paul Binder: Yeah. Another facet. Jo Reed: So would you say that that mythology is the roots of the Big Apple Circus? Paul Binder: A lot of it was unconscious, but as I did my homework it became more and more the yardstick for what we were doing. I experienced it in Europe, but I didn't quite have the rationale. I didn't know it in detail, but once we started doing the work and I kept on saying, "Boy, this is really vital what we're doing here. This is really reaching audiences and touching audiences on a wonderful emotional level. I mean, like I saw in Europe, there they were laughing and cheering and having a wonderful time. You know, generations of people simultaneously. So that was the roots of the Big Apple Circus. That was kind of the philosophical roots. The practical roots were I learned my trade in a wonderful place, touring France with this wonderful, small, theatrical, intimate group of people. Jo Reed: And what kind of acts would they have? Paul Binder: Well, there were several acrobatic acts. There was a horse act. We were the jugglers, Michael and I, and there were very large section of clown work because the founders of that circus were clowns. Annie Fratellini was a fifth generation of a circus family that were clowns, and her husband, Pierre Tex, who actually was a filmmaker, was the one who encouraged her. She was an actress and a singer. And he's the one who said, "Annie, you've got to return to your roots. We can create a circus here." So they did a lot of clowning in that show. And we, Michael and I, we were honored they put us in the 11th hour position in the show. That is the one next to last. We thought it was like a great honor. Look, hey, they think this act is strong enough that it can hold that position. And it was fabulous. I tell you. We would stand backstage before the curtains opened and we'd look at each other and say, "Hey, we're in the circus!” Jo Reed: When you came and began the Big Apple Circus, tell me about putting the circus on that first year, when nobody knew anything. Paul Binder: Well, I don't know if you all can remember, but downtown in the battery, there was a landfill just below Battery Park. There was a landfill that they were putting in. Jo Reed: And this is 1977. Paul Binder: Yeah, 1977. And we had this crazy idea that we wanted to do the circus and I can't even remember who arranged for us to be out on that landfill. But somehow we got a permit to be on this landfill down in the bottom of Manhattan and that's where we started. And in that first season, it really was flying by the seat of our pants. I mean, I had learned a lot touring in France with the Nuevo Cirque du Paris and I thought I knew enough to make it work. Well, I guess we did, but it was trial and error as we went. I mean, the first big problem was we ordered a tent to the dimensions of what we had experienced in France. And instead of going to the European tentmakers who were making tents like that, I went to a local guy who I thought could do it, you know? For some reason, I believed that if it was done by a local crafts group in New York it would be more effective somehow. Well, he jobbed it out to a group in Boston and we were waiting for our tent to arrive on this landfill and we began the process of setting up down there. I called the tentmaker and I said, "How's the tent coming?" And I got the runaround and I went, "Oh boy." And I literally got on a plane, flew to Boston, walked into the building and threw a fit, I think is the best way to describe it. By the time I left that building, they were sure that the entire population of New York City was going to invade Dorchester. Talk about commitment, I had made a commitment. I said I was going to do this. I said, you know, that, we were going to create this, so we had the support of a variety of small organizations. So there we were, and with all these commitments, I didn't even have the tent. And they managed to put it together and send it, so that was one of the first obstacles. The second is the tent they sent actually was the wrong size. Slightly off, so it had to be re-rigged in a way that we could use it. By the way, the guy who re-rigged it was none other than the great Phillip Petit, the high-wire walker who walked the towers of the World Trade Center. Jo Reed: I’m curious how you gathered the performers, I mean, given what you wanted to accomplish. How did you put the performers together? How did you get them together? Paul Binder: Well, in Europe, these were families creating circuses. I didn't have a family. So what I created was a company. That is a group of artists who I felt could be both generalists and specialists, and they would be the core of the group and then guest artists would come, you know, would be invited and contracted to work with them. And that lasted as a model until very recently. Jo Reed: How many acts did you have that first year? Paul Binder: You know, it’s hard to remember. I believe there were ten acts, nine or ten acts altogether, several of which were created in what was out first company. But it had the basics of what a good circus should be at that time. Although it didn't have horse acts at that point, and horse acts were the form that, in the 18th Century in England and then eventually in the U.S. or the form that circuses took, that was why they needed the ring. Trick riding was done in a ring because of the centrifugal force with the horse galloping around a ring. The centrifugal force would force the person standing on the top into the horse. Follow that? Jo Reed: Oh, yeah. Paul Binder: You students of physics. Jo Reed: And as the name suggests, Big Apple, it was really meant to be a community circus. Paul Binder: Yes, definitely community based and supported by the community and based in New York City but prepared to tour, which eventually we did. We saw New York City as a great place to do it, meaning that the cultural and theatrical community had a great feeling for innovative work, and to top it, I’m a New Yorker so it was very hard not to be here. Jo Reed: How close were the spectators to the action on the circus floor? Paul Binder: Oh, right up against the ring. The first tent, the back row of the ring was about 40 feet from the ring and then eventually the tent that we created that became our base tent, the last row of seats was 50 feet from the ring and the first row of seats was inches from the ring. Literally they could reach out and touch a performer. Jo Reed: Big Apple circus always had a really good reputation about the way it treated its animals. Paul Binder: Yes, we always worked with working animals—let’s make that statement first—not wild animals. Jo Reed: What about the elephants. Paul Binder: Well, elephants were working animals; that is, Asian elephants have been working animals for years and years and years, and so we were working with one specific trainer who was son of another trainer who had working elephants. So we did have elephants during those years and horses and dogs, camels, again, all working animals. Eventually, the guy who was our trainer, the brilliant William Woodcock, he had a wonderful elephant whose name was Anna May, named for the great Asian actress Anna May Wong. Anna May was a wonderful elephant who clearly loved doing the work. He always said to me, “You know, when Anna May is ready to retire I’m ready to retire,” and that’s exactly what happened. One day he said, “You know, she’s not enjoying it anymore, Paul. She just doesn’t have her old spark and fire.” He said, “So after this season I’m gonna wrap it up,” and so he did. And then we didn’t feel there was anybody in this country who could do that kind of work that would satisfy our standards of the care and treatment of animals, so that’s when we gave up elephants. And Anna May retired and he retired. He’s still alive. She passed away a few years later, and as he said, “We buried her with honors.” So she was a great animal, I mean wonderful to be with and work with and be around. But working animals, horses and dogs and camels, lamas and so on seemed to me to be not only acceptable, I thought in fact it was necessary to demonstrate the relationship that human beings have and could have and should have with animals if we’re to survive on this wonderful planet of ours. Jo Reed: And you were the ringmaster for, what, 36 years? Paul Binder: The first couple of years I wasn’t. It was in the third year that I chose to become the—it became a natural part for me, which was both as director, and I directed the first 19 shows, and artistic director, it was a natural for me to be the guy who was introducing the various elements of the show, not necessarily just the acts, although in the early days it was really a very straightforward presentation, but as we developed our forum and it became much more integrated, I saw the character as someone who was there to help translate to the audience, and the model, if you will, was sort of the remnant of the Greek chorus. The chorus’ job was to speak to the audience, to integrate their view with the action of the play, and so the ringmaster essentially was that role, the role of the Greek chorus. And to top it all off, not only was I the director and the artistic director, I was the perfect authoritarian figure so that the clowns could play off my authority, and that became a signature of the Big Apple Circus. We had wonderful clowning for years and years and years. Jo Reed: And you also had wonderful people flying through the air. Paul Binder: Oh, yeah, from the earliest days. In that first season in Lincoln Center we had the Flying Gaonas who were brilliant, a brilliant flying act. Flying trapeze of course is a great staple of the circus and very exciting for the audience, and we always had aerial acts. A lot were created by our core company people and wonderful floor acts, acrobatics, juggling. Jo Reed: When you were directing, Paul, you directed for 19 years— Paul Binder: Yeah. Jo Reed: —what was the arc that you were looking for as you were putting a show together? Paul Binder: Well, I think that’s a very good question because the idea was to build the show so that it piqued just before intermission and then started again in the second half and then piqued again at the very end of the show. When we’re talking about an emotional arc, the key elements were the opening, the First Act, the end of the first half before intermission, and then the second half that ended with a big finale, usually, by the way, the flying act at that point. Jo Reed: Was there any central—messages maybe isn’t the right word—I’ll say it, message—that you were imparting to the audience or trying to? Paul Binder: You know, what I always felt was, the statement we were making is look how amazing we are, we human beings. Look what we’re capable of doing. And the message to the audience is, you are capable of doing whatever it is you set out to do. I didn’t expect them to go flying through the air, the audience, but that was clearly always the message, and so as we built the arc of a performance it was about letting them understand the extraordinary nature of human beings. Now, the clown sort of represented the everyman side of it. The clown would trip and fall and then always get up and move on, so those two were primary elements in that arc that we were creating. And, my goodness, it worked. Jo Reed: And why the decision, Paul, to be a not for profit? Paul Binder: Well, at the time when we were building the Big Apple Circus, I looked at the numbers. Now remember, I had an MBA from Columbia, so even though I wasn’t great at finance, we built a budget and we looked at it and said there’s no way this could make money and, if indeed were focused on doing an artistic presentation. We’re gonna have to have the support of the community. Like the great theater companies and the opera and the ballet, we have to create this as a not for profit. And so we did, and it was a successful model for years and years and years and years. It made sense. What we were focused on was not the commercial enterprise. We were focused on creating a cultural institution that would touch the hearts and souls of the audiences that we were performing for. Jo Reed: We mentioned earlier but I’d like to talk just a little more specifically about the kind of outreach programs that Big Apple Circus were involved with. Paul Binder: You know, this was also part of the creation of why we felt we had to be a not for profit. From the beginning we said we were gonna be a community-based cultural organization that both created a world-class performing arts organization and served the community in which we performed. And the way we did that was we developed five award winning community programs, the largest of which Michael created Clown Care. Michael is the grandfather of medical clowning around the world. The first organization was called the Big Apple Circus Clown Care. Jo Reed: And explain what that is. Paul Binder: Well, Clown Care was clowns visiting the bedsides of acutely and chronically ill children and working with the medical staff to treat the kids through laughter. As Michael always said, “Feeling good is good for you,” so he brought this program, which grew out of a visit to the hospital. Our clowns from the Big Apple Circus were invited to a thing called Heart Day. These were kids who had survived heart disease and had transplants and so on, and it suddenly donned on Michael that this was a wonderful way to work with hospitals to help heal kids in particular, and from that emerged a thing called Clown Care. At its height at the Big Apple Circus it was serving 14 hospitals nationwide, but this required a good deal of training. It took a certain kind of clown performer to do this work and do it with the kind of discipline necessary in that kind of environment. Not everybody was suited to it. And it became an enormously successful program and was reproduced around the world. There are now medical clowns working in hospitals all around the world. So that became the biggest community program. It was ten years into the Big Apple Circus that it emerged. Jo Reed: And you also did a circus arts program with school kids. Paul Binder: Yes. What we started with was circus skills, training of inner city kids, which was wonderful because we saw it as a way of teaching discipline and teamwork and the ability to allow yourself to know you could achieve something very special. And, again, we ran that program every year. That was a primary program. And we did Circus of the Senses, for the sight and hearing impaired kids. For the sight impaired kids we would do a narrative. We would narrate what was going on in the ring and they would listen in on headsets. So that was always one of our programs. So we ended up with five community programs, all of which were very effective, but the flagship became the Clown Care unit. Jo Reed: We talked very briefly about the convening that the NEA held here in DC about circus arts, and it seems that as we discovered here that conversation really is happening in the United States about looking at the circus as an art form. When you began at the Big Apple this was still news to everybody. Paul Binder: Yeah, absolutely. I was thrilled to hear that the NEA was now looking at this in this way. I mean, going as far back as 1985 I wrote a piece that I sent to the NEA, which was about circus as art. It was roundly ignored. Did I say that? Okay. Jo Reed: No. Paul Binder: Nobody is more thrilled than I am to understand that what we were doing has influenced an entire generation of young people to see this as a possible way of expressing themselves artistically. I still don’t understand how all of that is going to coalesce in a way that becomes more effective. Honestly I don’t. That’s in someone else’s hands. But it’s exciting to know that there is this enormous number of organizations that are focused on it, and now the question is who emerges as the force which brings us into a new generation of circus art in this country. Something has emerged and let’s see where it goes from here. As I said, that’s in someone else’s hands. I’m at that stage in my life and career that I’ll be happy to consult. Jo Reed: Paul, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming into the studio and talking to me about Big Apple Circus and circus in general. Paul Binder: I’m honored, Jo. I think it’s terrific that we’re going down this road. Jo Reed: That’s Paul Binder, co-founder of the Big Apple Circus. You've been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening. <music up>