Who is that girl on the trapeze? Circus Extravaganza Debuts Friday in Hales Gymnasium Photographs and text by Nora Sohnen
	Zach Hickman, Odditorium producer and ringleader.		FEBRUARY 23, 2001--Odditorium, an independent and interdisciplinary circus extravaganza, will be performed Friday, February 23, and Saturday, February 24, at 8:00 P.M. and 10:30 P.M. in Hales Gymnasium. Directed by Zack Hickman, a senior from Lynchburg, Virginia, Odditorium is both entertainment and parody. From the audience’s point of view, the circus exists to provide an interlude of novelty, to amaze and fascinate, to present an alternative version of everyday life in which tradition is turned on its head by disguises and buffoonery, says Hickman. "What lies beneath, however, is not always so pleasant. The circus can be an exploitative, even destructive institution." Odditorium combines Hickman's academic and artistic interests. Over the past year, he has been researching the role of the circus in American history with Janet Davis, an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. And as a double-bass performance major in the conservatory's Jazz Studies Department, he has collaborated with other conservatory students to compose the music that will accompany each circus act. "Ez Weiss [a senior from Scottsdale, Arizona], Wally Scharold [a junior from Houston], Orion Keyser [a senior from Southampton, Pennsylvania], and Peter Evans [a sophomore from Weston, Massachusetts] have been working with me for a couple of months to compose the music for Odditorium," Hickman says. "I'm going to be the circus ringleader and conduct the band." The production is divided into two sections--a carnivalesque pastiche of barkers, freaks, and jugglers and a center-ring circus. "The freak show is a parody of the exploitative history of the circus sideshow," says Hickman. "Many of the cast members from Venus, including director Shannon Forney, are in my circus." The midway will feature magician and juggler Adam Brooks, a sophomore from Wayland, Massachusetts, and director of Oberlin Skilled Hands in Training. Hannah Logan, a sophomore from Atlanta and instructor of last semester's Low Trapeze ExCo class, and Jena Carpenter, a senior from Plainfield, Vermont, who trained at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, will perform with center-ring circus acts that include acrobats, clowns, and contortionists. "Basically, the circus is improvised," Hickman says. "It's a collection of small acts, and each person has responsibility for their own act. There’s a lot of freedom for performers to develop characters, and to change those characters during the show if they want." In the end, Odditorium celebrates aspects of the American circus and freak-show culture, both good and bad. The multilayered approach will appeal to families with older children; adults will appreciate the sophisticated elements of the production, and the younger set will appreciate the clowns, jugglers, and trapeze artists. "It's not for the littlest of kids," Hickman says, "The midway might be a little scary for the average three-year-old. But I think older children will enjoy the production; people definitely will leave with their spirits lifted." Jena Carpenter '00 performs for the camera.
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