Link Link Circus self describes as the world’s smallest circus. I cannot vet that, but it may well be the smartest and most charming. There’s a delicious layer of meta and irony in that while circuses — which feature animals trained on the basis of their behavioral tendencies — never really talk about animal behavior science, and this circus, which features almost no animals, is all about this. Isabella Rossellini starts her performance with the popular notion that we should not attribute human characteristics to animals, and the idea that animals and humans are entirely different, and then gently, joyfully, dismantles this notion with delight.
The circus consists of Isabella Rossellini, her puppets, a puppeteer, one tiny dog, and delightfully odd videos about animal behaviors. She grew up loving animals, and had a dog she took everywhere. Rossellini maybe most famous for acting and modeling, but now is in the process of completing a masters degree in animal behaviors. Link Link Circus is her second circus; the first one focused on the “waist down” behaviors of animals, while this one focuses on the “waist up” behaviors.
A full length performance about animal behaviors in less capable hands would feel like an endurance test. For all but the nerds among us, “animal behavior” conjures of images of textbooks or rats in mazes; we have been conditioned to minimize our own hard wired natures, and to, in turn, to deny the ways in which animals have similar behavior capabilities to our own. Chickens, for example, generally assumed to be dumb birds, are less dumb than I’d ever known. They can estimate quantities – they see that four is more than two, that three is more than one, and can select the larger quantity of food. They also can recognize up to one hundred different chickens in their coop, and have different chicken clucks for “danger above” or “danger below.” Chickens have a complex social system! They have individual personalities! These are fun things to know, or to re-learn, but they’re even better when they’re taught by a charming woman dressed as a circus ringleader, narrating over simple line-drawn animations that are projected behind her. Then, she showed photo portraits of photogenic chickens, declaring “this one looks like [silent film star] Lillian Gish!” I personally did not see the resemblance, but that was a very glamorous chicken in a striking pose.
Over the course of the circus, Rossellini used her multimedia aids to tell us stories about the complexity of animal culture and relationships. When she told the story of how gorillas in different forests use different signals for saying hello, she wore gorilla arms. Did you know that some animals are actors? To teach about how the snowy plover feigns injury to distract would be egg-stealing foxes, she showed a video of herself costumed as a plover, convincing a puppet fox to run after her. Her cute puppeteer did a bee dance. Her tiny dog came out dressed as various animals throughout the night: a lion, a gorilla, a bee.
Link Link Circus is something wonderful, and the world needs more engaging performances that bring the magic of storytelling to science. It’s good to be reminded that in this fascist world, which looks worse with the optics of the internet, there’s still so much marvel over, and to wonder about. We need more of this joy.
