Deborah Pope

Big Top, Big Time

Wellingtonian Deborah Pope abandoned a life of science to run away and join the circus.
Luckily for New Zealand that she did because Pope has been crucial to the development of this country’s circus industry.

During the 1980s, Pope started a medical degree, but moved to a science major and wound up looking after machines in a
cardio ward.
However, like many Kiwis, Pope hankered for adventure and headed to London for her great OE.

There, she took a circus class and enjoyed it so much she chose to study performance arts at London’s Middlesex University.
At the time, circus was dying out in the UK, but Pope helped re-invigorate it by establishing Circus Space, now a multimillion-dollar organisation in London.

“Circus had died out in the UK, because of television and the anti animal brigade – it all went Benny Hill.
“We lost all our circus artists and had to go France for training and bring artists back.”
She says that, looking back now, leaving the science world to becoming a circus performer was not as radical as it might seem.
“I thought about it afterwards and realised that what seemed to be a series of really odd choices was not.
“I’ve always been fit and loved sport and games. I was a feminist in New Zealand and circus at the time represented very strong female roles. You could control your own stuff, you could be boss of the circus, you could do the rigging; it was really a strong female thing and that appealed.”
However, it seems that the science and medical knowledge was not wasted.
“The science in terms of rigging and the anatomy of the body; all that knowledge became really useful,” she says.

Trained as an aerial artist, to fly through the air on a trapeze or hang from silks, Pope moved into directing. She has worked with circuses in China, France, Sao Paulo and Australia, and has been part of the art form’s resurgence globally.

By 2006, travelling with circuses for months at a time became less attractive, as Pope has a small daughter to think about. She returned to New Zealand in 2006 and settled on the Kapiti Coast with her daughter and English husband.

Pope has worked hard to establish circus in Wellington, although she is reluctant to take too much credit.
She set up Awkward Productions, with Derek Simpson, and creates circus shows, cabaret productions, festivals and community events.

“I don’t think of myself as a great business mind, but I love what I do and know that it’s good. Everything’s happened organically, rather than having tried to create a company. I’ve got a great producer, Derek, who keeps me on track.”

Pope has big ideas and knows what she wants to achieve. She wants more New Zealanders to participate in circus arts, either as performers or audience members.
It has not been an easy goal to achieve, she says.
“It has been very hard in New Zealand, because circus is not really a well-known art form. Here, it’s been regarded as a carnival thing, not as an art form that you could bring to theatres,” says Pope.
“But it is changing. The art form is becoming more recognised, what with Cirque du Soleil and other circus acts coming here.”
Recent acrobatic performances Adagio and Deadly, which Pope staged at Downstage Theatre, received rave reviews from critics and audiences.

Pope’s passion and hard work have got her this far. If she’s not creating, casting or rehearsing a show, she will be teaching students from the Wellington Circus Trust’s school in Miramar, a stone’s throw from Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post.
She set up the trust with circus performers Alice Capper-Starr and Tom Beauchamp.
“When I got back to New Zealand, I realised I wasn’t going to get artists here unless I started training them,” Pope says.
To ensure the continuation and growth of circus, she also turned her hand to running circus classes for children. Pope also regularly travels to Christchurch to teach at the country’s only NZQA accredited circus school.
“Also, if you start training kids up, you have work, in terms of teaching, for your professionals. And that means they can afford to train.
“It’s like anything if you can’t afford to keep training, you don’t stay good at it.’

Circus is Pope’s life and her face lights up when she talks about it. “I’m completely passionate about it. I’ve had a wonderful life and met so many wonderful people doing this. The experience of the shows is fantastic and I’m convinced it will do well here. I’m stubborn and determined; determined to see it succeed.
“You have to be passionate to succeed,” she says.
Even though Pope is upbeat, she admits the recession and lack of funding has made things hard. Shows must be created on tight budgets, while being creative and exciting enough so that audiences will buy a ticket.
“In these tough [economic] times, people want to be sure they are getting a good show for their money, and that’s fair enough.
“It’s not that it’s anyone’s fault in particular. It’s that we live in a very small country and it’s impossible to get a lot of dollars at the box office,” says Pope.
“The other thing is there is not enough money in the arts in general. A lot of dollars go to sports, but not the arts. The money that goes into rugby is staggering.
“I’ve been lucky. Wellington City Council has been generous with funding and I’ve had a second lot of funding from Creative New Zealand.”

She has also been commissioned to create a show for March’s Capital E National Arts Festival for Children.
Grimace will take children in to the wonderful world of fairy tales and nursery rhymes.
“Being commissioned is wonderful for me, in that I get the opportunity to make a show with a nearly proper budget. So much of what I’ve done in the past has been so under resourced.”
“I’ve been playing around with images, nursery rhymes, kids’ ideas for a while now. I read quite widely. I’ve got a 10-year-old daughter and we read together.”

Not only is Pope passionate and highly motivated, she works hard and has numerous projects on the go.
As well as Grimace, plans for the 2012 Festival of Circus are already underway and so are ideas for a Circus OZ show. Pope continues to work with circus groups across the globe.
She clearly loves the magic of circus and wants others to
share in it.
“There are some amazing characters in circus and there is a huge generosity about the people, so that’s still wonderful that you can meet all these people from all over the world and you have this real community.”

Rebecca Thomson
www.awkwardproductions.co.nz
www.capitale.org.nz