New England Journal of Environmental Education
AUGUST 2009

This notion of using circus to raise environmental awareness has been with me a long time, and I believe that it can work. As environmentalists we are all faced with the essential challenge: How do we make people care? For environmental educators, the extended question becomes “How do we make young people care enough to want to acquire the scientific knowledge and skills that will allow them to make conscious choices with regard to their own actions?” ARTFARM uses high quality theater with a commitment to simple living, environmental sustainability and social justice to address this question.

In the fall of 2007 the company created a touring circus, Circus for a Fragile Planet, that ties together the diverse threads of its mission by educating teenagers and  dults about global climate change and critical environmental issues. Kids, like most of us, will learn about the things that attract and excite them. Can we make the sober science involved in understanding global warming catalyze young people enough to encourage them to take positive steps now in defense of their future? How can they become informed, engaged and energized to promote change, to make personal lifestyle adjustments and to encourage their friends, families and schools to do the same?

The use of theater as an educational method is uniquely effective as a teaching tool, whether the students are watching a performance or directly engaging in learning concepts through theatrical skills themselves. Students hear and respond in different ways in a theatrical setting than in a classroom. When watching a comic performance or a circus, the audience pays close attention because they want to be sure not to miss a joke, a dazzling piece of artistry, or a bit of physical comedy.

Circus for a Fragile Planet, in its current incarnation, opens with an Austrian scientist, Professor Offli Varminhere (my role), presenting a one-man show which, “though it may be called a Circus, is actually a very serious show about very serious issues – namely, what we are doing to the Earth, and what the Earth, in return, may do to us.”

Varminhere’s show is quickly disrupted by three fun-loving clowns whom we come to find out are known as the “Fossil Fools.” The basic premise of the performance is built around the relationship between the Professor, his urgent Message, and the three clowns who, eventually, help him to deliver it. The show has been performed over thirty five times during the past eighteen months -- at elementary, middle and high schools, at festivals, children’s museums, libraries, universities and the State of Connecticut’s “One Thing Expo” at the Hartford Convention Center. Wherever the Circus travels it arouses enthusiasm and passionate calls to action.

Understanding global climate change and developing individual responsibility are the central themes of Circus for a Fragile Planet. The first few acts examine the causes of climate change and provide a four billion year perspective of life on Earth culminating in the “Fossil Fuel Revolution” of the past two hundred years. We are introduced to the carbon cycle and the causal relationships between human use of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. “Balance” is a central focus, both in terms of circus skills and planetary stewardship. The emotional turning point of Circus for a FragilePlanet comes as an acrobatic trio about a family of polar bears who become stranded on an ice floe, and from this point on the audience is asked to invest on a deeper level than that of simple spectatorship.

The emphasis of the second half of the performance shifts to personal responsibility, lifestyle adjustment and environmental advocacy. The Unicyclist and the Gas Can Monsters is about the danger of fossil fuel addiction and the promise and potential of solar power. The piece is fun and silly, not a deep exploration of the issues involved in solar power and fossil fuels, but it has a strong visual impact that makes a powerful impression.

A plate spinning sequence introduces the idea of informed choice in regard to the factors that we balance in relationship to the earth and our use of its resources. It is a repetition of six issues introduced by the Professor in the opening – Comfort, Convenience, Necessity, Profit, Progress and Survival. Where the first mention of these factors is made in the midst of wild activity and music, during the plate spinning, each is presented individually, with time to consider the meaning behind the words.

A One Minute Juggling act about the tropical rainforest demonstrates how long it takes for one hundred acres of rain forest to be destroyed. Like many acts in Circus for a fragile Planet, the piece takes a fairly abstract statistic and makes it literal, specific and tangible, while connecting the effects of loss of the rainforests to the greenhouse issues presented earlier in the show.

The finale to the show addresses Waste and Recycling, and weaves together many of the messages about individual responsibility that form the spine of this Circus.

The Fossil Fools are clowns who seem fun and appealing and only occasionally appear threatening. Though they initially bully, tease and antagonize Professor Offli  arminhere with their frivolous behavior and lack of mindfulness, ultimately his presentation benefits from their presence. I think that it is better to think of the “Fossil Fools”, despite their names – Methane, Gasso and Coalina – not so much as literal personifications of fossil fuels, but more accurately as the embodiment of reckless behavior among humans when hooked on fossil fuels.

Circus for a Fragile Planet goes light on props, but the central visual element of the play is an old telephone cable spool painted to look like the Earth. It serves as a metaphor for the planet and our relationship to it: play on it, have fun, enjoy it, but treat it with respect or it will hit you, make you fall or even run you over!

Almost all the props and other equipment used in the show are re-used or recycled. The backdrop is made from fabric donated from a clothing company that was closing down, and it is held up by a frame made of fallen tree limbs and saplings cut while clearing overcrowded brush. The juggling clubs are made from one liter plastic bottles and old dowels. We have replaced traditional juggling rings with old bicycle tires. This took some re-thinking on our part – most circus equipment tends to be made of plastic, and most theaters have a culture of buying new materials for every show then throwing them out when the show is done. At every juncture we attempted to discover how we could create a similar object from something that already existed and could be recycled to serve our purposes.

When we work with schools, we provide a study guide to students to both reinforce the scientific information presented in the Circus and to stimulate further investigation. Students are challenged to research the details and broader implications of the information that the show presents, as well as to check the Professor’s alleged “facts” and make sure that our rhetoric is based on hard, though ever-evolving, science. Lately, we have begun to enrich Circus performances in schools with a circus residency in which students see the performance, receive training in basic circus skills, and then devise their own original circus acts addressing environmental issues. Once you have a student engaged as audience, researcher, creator and performer, the seed of real learning and real social change is ready to grow.

An environmental organizer works to make people care enough to give money or time to the cause; an environmental educator attempts to engage students in a way that will make them listen and consciously shift their priorities. Many of the issues, statistics, examples and conclusions offered in Circus for a Fragile Planet may be familiar, but the fun presentation – even when preaching to the proverbial choir – can serve to re-energize the informed and renew their commitment to activism.