posttheater

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Gloden Circus. My name is Toto, the ringmaster. Please, stay under the umbrella, I do not want you to get wet.”

The audience enters the performance space as the audience of the last circus performance by the Golden Circus. The space is a black box where there is no distinction between the audience seats and the stage. The audiences are given umbrellas and raincoats to avoid the (virtual) rain, which falls down through the old tent with numerous holes. A maximum of 36 audiences is admitted to each performance and up to three audience members share one umbrella.
As soon as they open the umbrella, they see a round video projection on their umbrella. As they move around in the space, the video image follows the umbrella. What is projected on the umbrella is an image of the above: they see the tent structure, they see the sky through the holes on the tent, and they see numerous aerialists doing their tricks in the air.
There are four liver performers in the space. The audience encounters Toto, the ringmaster, Cody with his camera, Yogi the clown, and Mara the singer in the tent. Together with the video performers, these four actors tell and document the story of The Last Circus. The performers interact with the audience and the video projection, especially with the projected performers.The audience is asked to play an important role in the performance by actively catching the images on their interface, the umbrella.

<Story>
In the near future the advanced virtual reality technology has rendered the meaning of the word “real”. Spurred on by new developments in simulation technology, audiences have deserted “passive” activities in favor of interactive experiences where the very term “audience” no longer applies. In art and entertainment, live performance has been declared dead. Performing artists, as a result, find themselves on the street.
People go for more stimulating and extreme experiences delivered through virtual reality for their entertainment, all forms of live performing arts have been declared extinct.
Cody, a cameraman who works for the virtual reality film industry, one day discovers Toto and Halo, the leftover staff of The Golden Circus, a once prestigious circus troop. Toto and Halo could not give up their passion for their profession and they travel around the world performing in urban voids to promote circus arts, although anyone hardly pays them any attention. When Cody sees Halo, the tightrope walker, flipping in the air, he feels a strange sensation and becomes interested in them and their work. And in the female charms Halo has to offer.
Delighted by Cody’s interest, Toto and Halo tell him their story of hardship under the impact of virtual technology taking over live performing art. They condemn the simulated reality as only an “illusion”. They also explain that 50 years ago, all the circus artists had agreed on a pact not to be recorded on any medium. They refused to be imprisoned in recordings and then to be used as a source of virtual reality experience. In addition they intentionally destroyed a lot of existing films that recorded circus acts.
Intrigued to capture the circus on film, Cody convinces Toto and seduces Halo to present one last circus show, promising them that he will collect all the remaining circus artists in the region, the circus tent and the audience to complete a real circus experience. Resistant at first, Toto and Halo eventually give in for they do know that there is no future for the circus and if they do not act now, there will be no trace of circus whatsoever in this world. With persistence Toto demands one condition: that Cody uses analog film instead of a digital recording apparatus. Cody agrees and finds himself a 16mm camera that he finds in the basement of his grandfather’s house.
Under the real circus tent, though it has many holes and leaks raindrops, the Golden Circus puts on the final act. Cody captures the spectacle on film. As the circus approaches the climax, the tent mysteriously catches fire and starts to quickly burn down. The audience and the circus artists escape on time. However, there is trace of neither Toto nor the film documentation after the fire.