It brought a whole new way of thinking about circuses into the fore. We're in the middle of people starting to experiment with the circus as an art form. Running through it all, and further animating the proceedings, is a lively original score, composed by musical director Jeffrey Gaeto and played by a versatile four-man band that includes Rohnert Park resident Dale Gutridge. But juggling is just part of the action. Pickle circuses are known for their emphasis on movement, both the choreography of artistic director Tandy Beal and the precise coaching of acrobatics instructor Lu Yi, who brings decades of experience with world-renowned troupes of Chinese acrobats to the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, a unique training school that shares a home base in the Haight with the New Pickle Circus.
Some acts emerge as a creative synthesis of each participant's skills.
Razz recalls the origins of a scene in which the diminutive Wasnak appears as a small baby. Lu Yi said, 'Great, that's something I can work with,' and started thinking of all the tricks we could do where she never touches the ground. The director was putting it in a framework where it would work, and Diane and I were thinking of the comic possibilities. The combination of clowning and acrobatics is uncommon among contemporary circus performers, Razz says, but not historically. If I were in Shakespeare's company, it would have been expected.