Funicular Circus

Overview

The Funicular Circus (from the Latin funis, for rope, as in funicular railroad) is a contemporary circus effort founded & directed by Dave Gillies based in Mt Airy on the spacious wooded grounds of Circus Campus. We combine traditional materials and techniques of wire walking with elements of sculpture and design. These are blended together with circus skills while implementing singing, music, poetry & yoga in our approach to walking the wire.

We’re taking the circus out of the arena, out of the tent, & into the landscape. We explore connections to trees, rivers, sky, & tides. We draw attention to the space between – light, wind, & to how we are not only part of the landscape but supported by it. We highlight that we are all literally supported by our trees and rivers & believe that we need to be good stewards.

The installations make use of traditional tightwire methods combined with things we have learned from arborists, rock climbers, recreational tree climbers, a network of riggers, & other long wire walkers from Philadelphia, Brussels, The Netherlands, & Norway. Inspiration comes from colleagues, Dave’s liberal arts studies, the pulley systems of Leonardo da Vinci, tensegrity concepts of Buckminster Fuller, the precise and exact positioning of words of Emily Dickinson’s poems, the ephemeral creations of Andy Goldsworthy, the playfulness of Juan Miro, & the attention to joy we saw in the installations of Christo.

We have created installations in the Philadelphia area over the Wissihickon, the Schuylkill, a tidal portion of the lower Delaware, the Susquehanna and the Brandywine Rivers.

We have walked over canals in Brussels.

We rigged and walked wires in the Dolomite mountains in Italy.

We rigged in relation to the tides on the rocky south coast of the Dominican Republic , Grand Canaria, and on the Wild Atlantic Way on the west coast of Ireland.

We were the first an

Funicular Circus

The Funicular Circus (from the Latin funis, for rope, as in funicular railroad) is a contemporary circus effort founded and directed by Dave Gillies, and based in Mt Airy on the spacious wooded grounds of the Circus Campus. We combine traditional materials and techniques of wire walking with elements of sculpture and design. Together with circus skills we use singing, music, poetry and yoga in our approach to walking the wire. The Funicular Circus takes the circus out of the arena, out of the tent, and into the landscape. We explore connections to trees, rivers, sky, and tides. We draw attention to the space between, to the light, to the wind, and to how we are not only part of the landscape but are supported by it. We highlight that we are all literally supported by our trees and rivers and believe we need to be good stewards. The installations we make use traditional tight wire methods combined with things we have learned from arborists, from rock climbers, from recreational tree climbers, and from a network of riggers and other long wire walkers from Philadelphia, Brussels, the Netherlands, and Norway. Inspiration comes from colleagues and from Dave’s liberal arts studies: from the pulley systems of Leonardo da Vinci, tensegrity concepts of Buckminster Fuller, the precise and exact positioning of words and syntax of Emily Dickinson’s lapidary poems, ephemeral creations of Andy Goldsworthy, the playfulness and imagery of Juan Miro, & the attention to joy and beauty we saw in the installations of Christo.