Category Archives: trapeze artists

Pub day for A Circle of Dead Girls

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But the publication day last Friday was in Great Britain. Publication of the new Will Rees in the United States does not occur until the beginning of March.

The circus is coming to town. Although primitive by our standards – the circus would not even have had a canvas big top – in 1800 where entertainment options were few, the circus would have been huge. No trapeze artists, but there would be a high wire act, a clown, maybe a magician and also animal acts. Not lions or even elephants, but the more common animals such as horses, dogs, and pigs.

Who could blame the children from being excited – even the children living with the Shakers. Sadly, only the boys would be allowed inside, and the men, as women were not permitted to view such frivolity.

Circuses also provided a haven for refugees. This was only 7 years after the French Revolution and Napoleon was marching across Europe with his armies.

Of tightrope walkers and more

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One of the main characters in A Circle of Dead Girls is a tightrope walker, Called rope dancers, the tightrope walkers have been a feature of the circuses for centuries. The Romans called them funambulists.

My rope dancer is nicknamed Bambola, a name that I borrowed from a famous Italian tightrope walker. These aerialists have always been popular acts. I imagine the excitement in a small farming community at seeing this act would have been high.

Many of the rope dancers were women but not all. In fact, as the circuses traveled around, dynasties that were known for aerial acts formed and became famous in their own right.

Will Rees and others in the audience of that time would not have seen an act that became arguably the most popular of all: the trapeze artists. The trapeze was developed from the tightrope; more accurately from a slack rope that the artist then hung from. The first tricks were done from a static trapeze; a rope that hung without moving. The flying trapeze was not invented until the mid-1800s by a young aerialist: Jules Leotard. He invented it by practicing over his father’s swimming pool.

For many decades, the flying trapeze was one of these most popular acts ever.