the Way of the Showman 20 - Homesick for Shows (or: how plague made me homeless)
I have been feeling lost, like so many of you.
My Show was My home, now its destroyd by plague and I can't get home.
The Showman has his home in the space that arises in the meeting between performer and audience. We are all lost. The virus-plague has attacked our ability to gather in groups which means its infected and isolated me from accessing a place that's been my home away from home for my entire life. I explore the term Solastalgia - the homesickness you have when you are still at home, but that home has been irrevocably been damaged and altered by negative changes to the environment. Originally conceived of to describe the emotional state experienced by people affected by open cut mining in Upper Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia, I look at how our inner, interhuman home of shows have been open cut mined and destroyed by the pandemic. Since our Show-home is an inner experience and the virus is attacking our insides the inner geography thats being open cut mined is our souls. We all hurt and with good reason. I feel your pain fellow showfolk.
Show notes:
Object Episodes - Jay Gilligan and Erik Åbergs podcast exploring what juggling is now and was through the ages and where it can go in the future.
The Happy Sideshow - Experpts from a show we did in Stockholm, Sweden for the Subörb Circus festival in 2003.
Hideaway Circus podcast - Josh and Lindsay interviews who's who of circus.
the age of Solastalgia - article by the coiner of the term
Tedx talk by Glenn Albrecht
Solastalgia and Wildfire - a talk by Glenn Albrecht
...
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