Circus and sumo: tradition, innovation and opportunism at the Australian circus

This article examines an early example of martial arts performance in Australia occasioned by the tour of – purportedly – the first team of sumo wrestlers to leave Japan. By examining the performances and reception of the Japanese sumo wrestlers against the backdrop of international political relations, which included the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, this study contributes to our understanding of the transnational circulation of the martial arts on popular stages, and to our understanding of the circus as a politically dynamic site that nurtured performative transnational encounters. The case of the sumo wrestlers reveals, furthermore, ways in which the popular stage of the circus worked to undermine negative racial stereotypes prevalent in Australia’s homeland culture

Negotiating national identity at the circus: the FitzGerald Brothers' Circus in Melbourne, 1892

Throughout the 1890s and early twentieth century, the FitzGerald Brothers' Circus was the largest homegrown circus touring Australasia. Headed by two brothers, Dan and Tom, the FitzGeralds' Circus came to braod colonial attention as a result of its huge first season in Melbourne in 1892 when it played for fourtenn consecutive weeks at a city site, then performed through the suburbs for ten more weeks. Other circuses visiting Melbourne in the period 1890-92 - even large international companies such as Harmston's American and Continental Circus or the Sells Brothers' Circus from America - could sustain runs of no more than four consecutive weeks in the Victorian capital. The length of the FitzGeralds' first season in Melbourne seems particularly contradictory when framed by the prevailing socio-economic situation: the city was experiencing the worst fiscal depression in living memory and the years 1892-93 have been recognised by historians as the toughest of the depression. It was also the leanest of times for Melbourne's theatres and during this period some of Australia's best known circus organisations departed overseas or faltered due to financial difficulty exacerbated by the state of the national economy

Political animals: engagements with imperial and gender discourses in late-colonial Australian circuses

By referring to several wild animal acts presented in Australia in the 1890s at the high-status circuses of Frank Fillis and the FitzGerald Brothers, this essay explores the complex cultural interactions that occurred in the relationship between these major circuses and their late-colonial public. The author matches the circus’s wild animal act to nation-building tropes and examines the narratives of identity, patriotism, allegiance, and power that were articulated through these popular and unusual performances

The Fitzgerald Brothers' Circus : spectacle, identity, and nationhood at the Australian circus

Mobilising a diverse range of previously untapped primary sources that includes metropolitan and regional newspapers from Australia and New Zealand, colonial newspapers from Asia, pictorial evidence, manuscript letters, and performance ephemera, this book tells the story of the FitzGerald Brothers’ Circus, the first truly national and international circus of the Australasia region. Operating during a period of immense social and political change that encompassed events such as the emergence of the Australian Labor Party, widespread fiscal depression, crippling droughts, Australia’s Federation, the Boer War, and other international events that impacted Australia’s homeland culture, the FitzGerald Bothers’ Circus was regaled as the ‘national circus’ by people from both sides of the Tasman Sea. This book illuminates the circus’s role in shaping popular ideas about nationhood and the significance of the FitzGeralds’ Circus to Australian and New Zealand cultural history. Bringing to light the social, educational, scientific, political, and identity discourses that the circus articulated through its productions during a twenty-year period, this book makes a strong case for the coercive power of popular entertainments upon popular opinion. It also fills a gap in our understanding of how Australians and New Zealanders spent their leisure time, what enthralled and excited them, and what made them laugh

Devising place and social history: a regional perspective on teaching devised performance in the tertiary sector

New performance-making practices are so central to contemporary theatre production globally that a course on devised performance is an obvious critical and practical learning experience to offer students of Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies in the higher education sector. I use the term ‘devised performance’ here to indicate a new performance work for which there was no pre-existing play text or performance score. Within the limited timeframe of an undergraduate course, however, it is simply not possible to teach the many different categories of devised performance that are prevalent in contemporary Western theatre practice; this is particularly true for courses that maintain a focus on practical exploration and collaborative outcomes. Autobiographical performance, site-specific performance, time-based performance, verbatim drama, documentary theatre and site-responsive performance are just a few of the genre categories currently applied within the eclectic field of contemporary performance-making. When one reflects on the fact that there is no singular or overriding process of creative experimentation that can stand in for the wide variety of strategies employed by contemporary devisers, the prospect of teaching a course on devising performance can initially appear problematic. The obvious solution is for the tertiary teacher to choose which sorts of performance-making processes and outcomes will suit their specific teaching environment and their available resources. This article discusses the pedagogical strategies currently employed for teaching collaborative performance-making within the School of Drama, Fine Art and Music at the University of Newcastle

The FitzGerald Brothers' Circus: considering circus entertainments in late colonial New Zealand

My study of the vibrant, internationalist, and prolific entertainments presented in New Zealand by the FitzGerald Brothers’ Circus in the years 1887-1904, from which this essay is derived, challenges the historic relegation of circus to the frontier settlements or to the periphery of colonial society. The FitzGeralds were part of a group of elite entertainment organizations that employed advanced marketing and management strategies to entrepreneur major tours of the colony in this period. This essay aims, in some measure, to reclaim the position circus entertainment acquired in the cultural fabric of late colonial life, and in the cultural imaginary of the public of New Zealand during this era

Roll up to the circus!

During the 1890s and early years of the twentieth century, the circus tent was arguably the most popular place of entertainment in Australia. Of the many native and foreign circuses which toured our continent throughout those years of emergent nationhood, the Fitzgerald Brothers’ Circus became the largest and most successful provider of circus entertainments across Australasia. Yet, despite thousands of performances during the years 1889-1908, very few pieces of ephemera remain. A recent week spent at the National Library revealed some unique and diverse articles relating to the Fitzgeralds, each of which casts light upon this important nineteenth century entertainment company

Make it Australian: the Australian performing group, the Pram Factory and new wave theatre (book review)

Review of: Wolf, Gabrielle Make It Australian: The Australian Performing Group, the Pram Factory and New Wave Theatre. Pp, xvi + 288 + 24 illus. Sydney: Currency Press, 2008. Paper, AUS$32.95 ISBN: 978-0-86819-816-3

The circus and the amusement park: a site of contestation near Princes Bridge, Melbourne

This chapter is in part about Princes Court in the years 1904-06 but it is also about the leading circus of the era, the FitzGerald Brothers Circus. The catalyst for my discussion is the piece of crown land on which Princes Court was built and which also accommodated the large circus building of the FitzGeralds. A contest of some kind emerged between the dual tenants of the land in early 1905; such was the topic of a thread of discussion in the Bulletin whose contributing readers speculated about the intention of the shareholders of the amusement park to assume control of the FitzGeralds' portion of the land