Under the Big Top #194

Chris Thompson:

Art and kind of creative culture making are part of how we think about the fabric of the project. Right from the beginning has been really key.

Peter Nielsen:

It's the whole point of circus is what can a human being achieve and what is that experience like and how do you make that into art and entertainment? And

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 194 under the big top, airing for the first time on Sunday, May 31, 2015. Maine is known for constantly reinventing itself, often in fun and interesting ways. Recently a group of developers has been making significant changes to Thompson's Point in Portland. They will be offering space to businesses, artists and a variety of creative folk, including a new circus group. Today we speak with Chris Thompson of Thompson's Point and with Peter Nielsen of the Circus Conservatory of America about their exciting new ventures. Thank you for joining us. As a longtime resident of Maine, I have spent I have made many journeys across the bridge looking towards the Portland Jetport and over time I've noticed things like a train and the bus station and all kinds of new and exciting things happening over to if you're going south, happening over to the right. And now something really exciting is happening and that is Thompson's Point. Today we have with us Chris Thompson who has developed several hotel and mixed use projects in New England. Current projects in Maine include Thompson's Point in Portland and a 93 room Hampton Inn Hotel in Lewiston. Chris is an Associate professor at the Maine College of Art and author of Felt Fluxus, Joseph Beuys and the Dalai Lama. Thanks so much for coming in and talking to me today.

Chris Thompson:

My pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And thanks for doing something with that piece of land. I think those of us who have lived in Maine a long time, we've wondered what's going to be done there. Because it's waterfront, it's riverfront.

Chris Thompson:

Yeah, it is. It's an extraordinary site. It's a 30 acre peninsula with really, you know, it's water on all sides. It's got 295 right next to it, the transportation center right across the tracks. I mean, it's an extraordinary piece of land. I mean, you'd search the world over for something with that much innate potential. But that's always been the key. It's potential. And how do you activate that? And that's why it sat so long. It was really a challenging site to pull all the pieces together. The access, the environmental, all of that. We've been at it for about six years and it's taken that much time to do all the groundwork to really let it come to life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

If I remember correctly, there was more of an industrial use to it previously.

Chris Thompson:

Yeah, it's an amazing site with a great history. It's an old rail yard and all of the existing buildings. There are a couple down there today still standing, or at least parts of old buildings still standing that were all part of the old rail complex. And all the buildings were positioned so that trains could move in them, through them, and get shuttled across the site. And there was this spider web network of tracks leading in and out of buildings. Just an extraordinary site that there's still a couple pieces left that we're trying to bring back to life and then of course, add new construction to that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what drew you to that site? What was it about that land mass?

Chris Thompson:

I think a lot of folks like you made that trip past Thompson's point and said, how can that not be something else and what will it take for that to be something else? And the answer was a lot of mixed uses that work together in synergy because otherwise it's virtually impossible to carry. The cost, the infrastructure cost alone of a large project like that. You really need a few uses together that makes sense and can happen more or less together. And so our group has done hotel development, a lot of mixed use projects. Like a lot of small development companies in northern New England. Our group became a fairly multidisciplinary one and that worked in a lot of different commercial real estate product types. But over the last maybe 10, 15 years, hospitality and hotel development and management has been our key focus. So a lot of our projects are either hotel projects or mixed use projects that have a hotel and hospitality component. We love that business of you know, welcoming, greeting, making sure people have a great experience, whether it's in a hotel or, you know, in a larger project as a whole. So we had been interested in, and this was back, this was probably seven years ago before a lot of the new hotel rooms had come into the market. And we were looking at a couple different sites in town for a potential hotel site. And our family is. Were owners in the Red Claws team. And so we were talking about, you know, the Red Claws had had a first season and we're looking at possibly doing a practice facility. We had been interested in doing a hotel. We were looking at Bayside, as were they down near where Whole Foods is today. And we said, well, geez, you know, if, you know, the Red Claws want to do a practice facility and you know, we could do the hotel project. And there was another, you know, group who was interested in doing office building. And pretty soon the project outgrew Bayside. And we said, well, let's look at Thompson's Point. If we have this kind of a mix, you know, we probably could put something together. And that's what led to it. Feeling like there was enough critical mass to really make it make sense and leap off the curb and take a risk. And of course, it's like anything in life, any creative project, what you start with and what you end with are often radically different in form, but not often in terms of the impetus and the, you know, the goal behind it. So I think right from the beginning, for the last, you know, six years plus, our goal has been to transform that site into a really great mixed use project that feels like it's part of Portland. I think when we started, we had a slightly different approach to the site. We had other pieces of the site that were not available that since then we've been able to pull in. You know, the suburban propane site, for example. When we started, we were just working around them. Since then we've been able to put a deal together to get them to relocate. So we've been able to really pull that whole peninsula together and really look, I think afresh at what's there. And it's sort of obvious in hindsight that and sort of surprising that this wasn't the way we began the project. I think we assumed we would have to really essentially scrape the site and build new and make the whole site come out of the ground at the same time. But in hindsight, you know, I think we didn't spend enough time really paying attention to what was there that could be kept. And those Two old existing brick buildings are just extraordinary resources. And then there's a piece of the old Union Station actually at the site, which is sort of remarkable. It was the building that for a long time was covered with corrugated metal and plywood and surrounded with debris. It was the thing that everybody saw when they looked over at Thompson's Point and said, that's terrible. We've got to be able to do better. And lo and behold, when you strip all the junk off the outside of that building, it's this extraordinary old steel structure that was part of the old Union Station. It's about a third of the old rail depot that people used to come in and out of, you know, coming into St. John Street. And so we restored that and rebuilt the sort of the structure of it and put in a new slab and a roof. And that's where we had the beer camp event last summer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, tell me about that. This was the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp, which was the summer of 2014.

Chris Thompson:

It was, it was our first, our first event. And it was about a 3,500 person event. And at the time we were still finishing up all the off site infrastructure. There's a lot of work that, you know, development projects require that you don't see, which is things like road widening and, you know, underground infrastructure and rail crossings and all that sort of stuff. So that work was nearly complete. And really it was a real hustle to get everything ready to accommodate that event. And sometimes having an event like that is what you need to really kind of push everybody to move at warp speed to get everything done, ourselves included. And that event was just remarkable. It was Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp, which was a cross country tour that Sierra Nevada was part of. And there were a couple of key crafts brewers, Allagash, others that were part of the, the train. And then at each location they would assemble, you know, this great collection of, you know, local, you know, wherever they were, it was the local brewing community who would get together around this core event. And Maine just had this unbelievable turnout. And of course, Maine has an amazing kind of craft brewing, both, you know, history and present. There's just some amazing folks doing amazing things with beer in all of its forms, and they all converge for this event. And it was just spectacular. And it was really interesting too, because that depot structure, that old pavilion building, Sierra Nevada at all of its other locations had just used temporary tents. That was the way they had assembled it. And that had been their plan before they came to Portland. Even though they knew that structure was there. Their model was a different one. And then saw that and said, geez, let's really think about how to use that thing and set everybody up, all the local brewers in this sort of beer hall environment underneath that roof. And it was just an amazing experience. Everyone who we talked to just had a blast. So that was our first event and it was just, I think, a really remarkable one that let us, I think, see what the site could be when it really became a kind of a hospitality center. And that led to. We've been talking with Lauren, Wayne and the State Theater folks for a while about how to put an outdoor concert series together. And so that goes live this summer. We've got three concerts already confirmed and there's, you know, one or two others that, you know, may get done this summer too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So who will be there?

Chris Thompson:

We have Ingrid Michaelson on June 28th. We have Primus and Dinosaur Jr. On July 27th, which I'm particularly excited about. I lived on Primus during college. And then we have Grace Potter on August 1st. So those are the confirmed shows. Should be fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's kind of a diversity of music represented there, I think.

Chris Thompson:

I think it's a natural extension of what the State Theater is doing, which is growing this just world class, you know, modest in size. I mean, the State Theater's, you know, a couple thousand capacity and then they got Port City, so it's this great. And then of course, when they know, you know, when they have something like Mumford and Sons, I mean, they know how to do a big show and really do it right. And I think Mumford and Sons really showed everybody what Portland could do. And that's really Lauren and her team, you know, really, you know, making sure the experience is good and, you know, because that's what it's all about. I mean, people will come back if you treat them right and make them feel like they've had a good experience and good value. And Portland has such an amazing music community and she's really, I think, led the charge and giving that a forum, you know, to really, you know, be as great as it can be and bring in some great acts. And so we're really excited about the partnership with her this summer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

we at Love Maine Radio are fortunate to have a collaborative relationship with Apothecary by Design and to offer an ongoing speaker series. The next speaker in the series is me. We invite you to join me and hear more about finding wellness in water and nature. We're going to be discussing the brain, the body and the deep blue sea. During this event, we'll explore the power that water has to relax, restore and revive our spirits from a neurobiological perspective. And we'll give you some tips for putting these things into action in your own life. We hope to see you on Monday, June 1, 2015 from 5 to 7pm it's going to be a great time and you'll learn a lot. Plus, I just like having my friends around me. Thanks. You also had Sam Van Aken and the tree of 40 fruit, so you have music scheduled and art in the past and the future, I'm assuming.

Chris Thompson:

Yeah. So Sam Van aken's Tree of 40 fruit project is this wonderful experiment that has literally borne fruit. Where he began by well, he began with a question like all great art, you know, starts with asking the right question. And he wondered what had happened to all these great varieties of heirloom stone fruit that he knew were out there in the world. You know, the such and such plum from the 14th century. I mean, in theory someone's still growing this, but I can't find them anywhere. And it's because as the, you know, the world of monoculture, you know, takes hold. You know, like our kid doesn't want to eat the yellow plum, so we don't want to buy it so the store doesn't want to carry it, and pretty soon the farmer doesn't have any reason to grow it. And of course, that's the trend over time. And Maine used to be, I learned from this great artist, Sam Van Aken, who we've been working with. Maine used to be one of the nation's top producers of stone fruit, which is fruit with a pit, plums, et cetera. Where did that go? And so he started trying to figure out, well, where are these varieties and how can I find them? And he was a Syracuse, actually still is a professor at Syracuse, and found this orchard in upstate New York that had been part of, I think, the state university system or something that was about to get bulldozed because they couldn't continue to support the growing of these varieties because they couldn't find a market for them. So he convinced them to let him take over the lease for a while and cull what he could and bring it home with them and figure out how to get it at least stabilized. And then he figured, okay, well, I don't have x thousand acres of a farm of my own. How do I get creative and efficient and figure out how to graft multiple different varieties under the same tree? So he calls it an orchard on a tree. So you get one trunk up to. There's 40 different varieties that he works with. So it's this really interesting, pretty radical preservation of these great historic varieties that are, you know, grandparents and great grandparents used to be able to find and eat and taste. And that's one of the fascinating things that we've learned from him is that, you know, in the old days, the first thing that used to matter was how does it taste? Second was, how does it look? And third was how well does it ship? Because it would come off the tree or come out of the ground and be in the store, you know, within moments or days. Now it's the complete inverse of that. So how does it ship? Is question one. How does it look in the display shelf? Question two, and then how does it taste as a distant third? And so one of the things that's really remarkable about this project is when you can pull one of these things off the tree and eat it, and it's a taste that no one gets anymore. And in fact, some of them, no one's had around here anyway, you know, ever. You got a 14th century French plum. I mean, that's pretty cool to be tasting something that's, you know, 500 years old. So anyway, so this all goes back actually to the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp event. When we were planning that event, we remembered that Sam, this artist, had done this really cool project back in 2005 called the Time Machine, which, when he was at University of Maine, he used to show work at the Whitney Artworks Gallery on York street, which is this great contemporary art gallery that was around for a few years. And he did a show. And one of the great pieces, I'll never forget, was this time machine, which was a, you know, workman's trailer. Just a regular old work trailer from the outside. But on the inside was a replica Irish pub that he had recreated, you know, with the green walls and the wood paneling and, you know, the oak table. And, you know, he had the great innovation that, in my mind, made it better than any pub you ever go to of actually having the pump right at your own table so you could sit and fill your glass without even getting up, and had the shelf for the Irish whiskey and all this stuff. It's cool. I mean, it's a tiny space, maybe, you know, five by nine square foot. I mean, it's a tiny space, and you can fit four in there comfortably, maybe six if you really, you know, get cuddly. And this is just great project. And so we said, well, geez, I wonder, you know, if that. With beer camp coming, I wonder if the time machine is still out there, maybe we could get it and, you know, hitch it up to the trailer and, you know, bring it to Portland. And, you know, all these artists do all these great projects and end up paying someone to store them, and they never see the light of day again. And indeed, that was the case with the time machine. It was just sitting in his barn. And he said, yeah, I'm happy to hitch it up and bring it to Portland. And in fact, I'm coming to Maine for this tree project that I'm working on. So, of course we said, what tree project? And that was the Tree of 40 Fruit. And he sent me about 10 different links. There was a TED talk that he had done an interview in Epicurious, just all this great stuff. And I just, you know, consumed it. And I read one interview in Epicurious where he had talked about wanting to do a grove of these trees. And I thought, that's it. That's what we got to do. We got to be the first grove of the Tree of 40 Fruit anywhere in the world. I mean, what a great link to the goal behind our project, which is to take this, you know, this really interesting hybrid form and figure out how to let it you know, not to get too poetic, but how to let it bear fruit. And so the idea is that we planted the first four trees, which is kind of the core part of the grove, last October. So they're in the ground now. You can drive down and check them out, and there's all these little white tags on the branches, and each one of those is a different variety. So you can go down and see the tags fluttering in the wind. And you can imagine that those will all be multiple varieties of these really cool peaches, plums, etc. And so the plan is that as the site gets built out, the grove will grow so that, you know, when, you know, a building comes online, we plant another couple of, you know, these trees of 40 fruit so that over time, you know, the site and the grove grow together sort of, you know, Johnny Appleseed style to be able to really create, I think, this pretty fantastic orchard, you know, for the residents of Portland. And one of the great things, I think, about how the project is unfolding is the infrastructure, the sidewalks, you know, getting into the site. Those are the first things to come. So before the buildings are even all built out, there's an invitation and a way to get to the site. So that's like the first thing that occurred. So that as the people who live in Libbytown and Rosemont and elsewhere, you know, in Portland, you know, see these things coming online, they can just walk into the site that can function as their backyard and have an orchard there, which I think for us is what it's all about.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were a professor, an active professor at the Maine College of Art in art history and cultural history. And you have a PhD from the University of London.

Chris Thompson:

So you have a seamless move into real estate.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I think it's interesting that you have incorporated your art background into the work that you're doing with real estate. And I actually think that's it's important because not everybody is able to see the business and the art side of things. I think they often are held separate, and then that causes frustration. If you're an artist and the business side comes hard, or if you're a business person and you can't access that art side of yourself. So it's interesting that you've been able to bring these together and it's largely as a result of your own background.

Chris Thompson:

Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. And I think I grew up with a real estate developer. My stepfather was a developer. He's a great, just fantastic guy. He passed away a couple Years ago. And we were fortunately able to work together for a number of years before he died. One of the things that I learned early on was how much real estate development, and really all entrepreneurship in general, is a creative practice. One where, you know, it's like being a painter or being a sculptor or musician. You know, it rests with you. If you don't get out of bed and do it, it's not going to get done. And real estate development is the same thing. You know, you have your attorneys and your architects and your contractors, but if you don't get out of bed and move the ball forward, the project doesn't occur. You know, at the end of the day, there's nothing necessarily special about me or him other than you kind of get out of bed and be the cat herder and figure out how to, you know, make this project that, you know, can occur actually happen. You know, it's like having a studio practice in that sense. And so I guess for me, right from the beginning, it made sense that, you know, taking something and turning it into something else, which is what real estate development ultimately is. I mean, there are people who make great careers doing nothing but class B office buildings. And they may not look at it like I look at it, but I think what they're doing is a creative practice like anything else. And it takes building things and steps and responding to things that change because the world changes. We've been working on this project for over six years. Portland's changed a lot. When we started, it was the heyday of the recession. I mean, we could literally walk into the, you know, the planning board. Now you gotta wait months because Portland's thriving, and you gotta be able to change and, you know, rethink and respond to changing conditions in the world like art makers do. I think the other thing that as a professor at Mecca, I learned was how truly creative art students and artists are. And it's not just in the ways that they think they're creative. They look at history differently than a trained historian. They look at entrepreneurship differently than a business person. But they're no less creative, inventive and motivated. And in fact, to me, the history of real estate and the history of artists are really one and the same in that you take all these great places in the world that became cool. You know, think of soho or Williamsburg or East Bayside. I mean, these are places where, you know, creative work found a home and figured out how to flower. And then the city suddenly realized that that was great and cool, and other things start to occur. Around it. And that's really the, I think, the story of great culture happening in cities that either are great or become great. And for me, that's just a fascinating model and one that I think artists and people who, you know, trade in making culture, I think, need to be mindful of and need to understand what role they play in making that happen and require that, you know, some of that equity that they're creating, they have some ownership in. So for me, how to build that into a model, you know, how to. How to actually make sure that that occurs, that it doesn't just become a cool place that no one can afford to live in anymore. I mean, you have to balance that. And I guess, conversely, that's the other side that I think, coming from the real estate side you bring to the table is you need to have a balance of kinds of risk in a project. You can't just do 100% highly risky. Let's hope that this occurs. You have to balance that with some more stable components of your project so that the ones that are really fairly radical and progressive and need help and support in order to thrive. Take, for example, at Thompson's Point, we have this great project called OpenBench, which is a guy named Jake Ryan put together this really interesting model for. It's a membership structure for makers of all kinds to be able to have a facility that they can use and share. They've got private workspaces, they've got access to shared equipment. They've got great programming. That's a project that, to me, represents how Portland is changing and becoming, I think, this really fascinating small city. It's growing in ways that I think make facilities like that possible in a way that would they have been a few years ago, I don't know. And I think for us, we can't have a whole project of entirely Open Bench, you know, that. That wouldn't work, but neither can we have a whole project of office buildings. I mean, who needs more of that? You need a couple, you know, and having those and Open Bench be on the same piece of the earth with a circus conservatory and a hotel and a. You know, really putting all these uses together and balancing them out, I think is to me, what makes a great place possible. Not just a great, you know, commercial real estate project. And you can do an office park anywhere in the world. Why do it in Portland? Well, someone else might really want to do that. That's not what we do. And I think you're absolutely right, that that comes from, at least for me and Everybody will have their own trajectory that gets them to where they are. But for me, seeing how integral artists and people who make culture really are to cities becoming great and figuring out how they get woven into the project from the very beginning and not being, you know, like the whole concern about, you know, public art or, you know, like coming in later, you know, like we're done with a project, I guess begrudgingly we have to let someone put up a mural now, you know, that that's. I wish that didn't have to happen that way. And it really doesn't. I mean, things like that don't add complexity to the process. They don't add a lot of cost. And if you think about them early, they often add tremendously to your project and save you money. And so for us, I think making sure that, you know, art and kind of creative culture making are part of how we think about the fabric of the project right from the beginning has been really key.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm excited to go hear maybe Ingrid Michelson in June or to see the tree. I haven't seen the tree yet. The Sam Van aakken tree of 40 fruit. Chris, is there a website? How do people find out more about Thompson's Point?

Chris Thompson:

There is. If you go to thompsonspointmain.com you'll find a wonderful website that launched several months back. And then there's also links to the State Theater site. And they're essentially the. The keeper of the concert logistics and information. So if you want to know how to book a ticket or where to park or what have, you can go to either. And so. Right. You mentioned Ingrid Michaelson on 28 June, which is our first show. Then there's Primus on July 27 with Dinosaur Jr. That's a duo that I'm particularly excited about. Grace Potter, August 1st. Then there's a couple of other events. The Circus Conservatory is hosting the American Youth Circus Organizations Festival, which is actually a pretty remarkable thing for a startup institution. You know, there's institutions all over the place that, you know, vie to get this event and they, you know, they secured it. So there's 400, you know, gifted young circus folks from all over the country, country, converging on Thompson's Point in mid August. And there'll be at least one sort of public performance down there. So that should be pretty cool. There's a couple other things in the works, a couple other smaller events and there's a makers kind of a market that'll start and become a regular thing on every Saturday morning down there. So there's lots of activity starting in June and going forever.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Excellent. Well, I'm very glad to know that now as we're flying into Portland, or we're driving to the airport, or we're going to the bus station, we're going to be looking at this great project that's bringing art and business and culture to the city of Portland. So we appreciate your doing that.

Chris Thompson:

Yeah, it's our pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been talking with Chris Thompson, who has developed several hotel and mixed use projects in New England. We look forward to hearing more about Thompson's Point here in Portland. Thanks so much for coming in.

Chris Thompson:

It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy when was the last time you took a break from what you were doing, from the work that was piled up on your desk and just looked up? I know that during the course of my days I often forget to take a moment or or two to just breathe, look up at the sky and dream. Terrible that I have to remind myself to breathe. But when I do, I feel energized because in those moments I'm able to let go of the daily grind and think more about what I want to accomplish, how I want my business to grow. Sometimes those are the aha moments. If we all took a few moments out each day to stop what we were doing and dream a little about our business futures, not only would we feel a great sense of calm, but we may come to realize that these dreams can, in fact, come true. I'm Marcie Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Boothmaine.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Growing up in Maine, I had the opportunity to go to what is considered to be a more traditional circus, the Cumberland County Civic center, which is now not called the Cumberland County Civic Center. But what was going on that was beyond a more traditional circus I didn't really know much about. And now there's a lot going on with the circus here in Maine. And today we have Peter Nielsen, who is the president of the Circus Conservatory of America, who's going to talk to us about the circus and his approach to the circus, which is really very exciting. So thanks for coming in.

Peter Nielsen:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, Peter, your background, you have 25 years of organizational leadership background. You produce theater, music, performance, poetry, dance and visual arts events and festivals throughout New England for more than two decades. I mean, you've done a lot of things and been in a lot of places doing them. Tell me, why the circus?

Peter Nielsen:

So the circus I discovered mostly through my son, and my son is now 20 years old, and he's studying in Montreal to become a professional circus performer. But when he was. When he was born, we were living in Vermont, and we were on the sort of a trail for the summer tour of Circus Smirkus, which is headquartered in Vermont and tours around New England and does, you know, 70 shows in seven weeks every July and August. And they would finish up their summer tour in August in Montpelier, where we were living. And so we had these little kids and Isabelle and Noah, and we would take them to the circus, and when they would come home, they would just, you know, sort of start doing. Even when they were just two, they would do somersaults and just try to mimic what they had seen. And they would do it all the way till the next year when the circus would come back. So they were really big Smirkus fans. And as my son, my daughter got really into dance and went off in that direction. But my son was just really into all kinds of movement that was sort of extreme movement. So he would take his tricycle down the hill at 100 miles an hour and just sort of find all kinds of ways to be dangerous. And he had incredible sense of balance, which a friend of mine who was a stilt walker recognized. And so this friend of mine built Noah a pair of stilts when he was 8, and they were big, tall stilts. And Noah got right on him and talked to my friend, who basically said, you don't really have to learn how to walk on him. That comes easy. You have to learn how to fall. So Noah, at 8 years old, just kind of takes me outside and says, all right, you know, I got to start falling. And so he just had this sort of, like, fearlessness and sense of balance and sort of determination, and all of that became, you know, sort of characteristics that led him into the circus. And so we let him go to Circus Circus Camp, and he auditioned for the Big Top tour. He got into it eventually, and he toured for four years. Doing those 70 shows in seven weeks was Circus circus. And that exposed me to this whole culture, this youth culture of what Contemporary circus is that kind of blew my mind open and made me realize that there was an opportunity here for more of that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I mentioned my experience with the circus, it really. My experience really was big elephants and animals and there was, you know, those acrobatics. But it didn't require. It didn't seem like it's what you're talking about. You're talking about more the Cirque du Soleil kind of circus.

Peter Nielsen:

Yeah. And I think the distinction and where the sort of shift happened was the kind of circus that most of us grew up with here in the United States was essentially a form of American expansionism, capitalism, circus. And what that means is that the circus is ancient and has been around and sort of has been a part of almost every society in the history of humanity. And in the United States, it took the form of, you know, it had a lot to do with the expansion of the railroads and the circuses, traveling by train from community to community and bringing things that people hadn't seen before to the frontier, like tigers and lions and bears and elephants, and also just sort of acting out the sort of, you know, sort of Americanism of what was happening. So you ended up with a very sort of. You ended up with a circus that was driven by this sort of railroad lifestyle and the kinds of people who would live on the railroad and never settle down and things like that. And that, you know, sort of merged with sort of vaudevillian comedy. And what we ended up with in the late 20th century was sort of the Ringling Brothers show, which was the sort of corporatization of all that earlier frontier rodeos and things like that. And it has a very strong place in American history. But like a lot of things that happened at the end of the 20th century, it was exposed to globalization. And there were other influences happening in other parts of the world that began to work their way into North America, specifically after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the Soviet Union. Lenin nationalized the ballet, and he nationalized the circus, among many other things that were nationalized at that time. But the ballet and the circus both were driven by the same sort of approach of bringing the state's influence and military style, coaching and discipline to these two art forms, because the intention was to show how the perfection of the individual would be demonstrated as the triumph of the state. Really, what happened? So then, okay, so they bring all these great. All these Russian circus coaches emerge as sort of very disciplined, very highly trained, very capable circus coaches. And over the course of the rest of the 20th century, they start moving their way into Western Europe and between the wars, getting involved in cabaret shows in Paris, meeting up with these French artists and putting together these very artistic circus shows that were also very, very, very high level of elite athleticism. And that became the basis of sort of contemporary circus. And in the 1960s in North America, there was a renaissance of the performing arts. And there was also a movement in Quebec for Quebec separatism from Canada. And there was this nationalist fervor of having a French cultural identity. So things from France were imported, imported cultural things were imported to Quebec to create this Quebec identity. And circus was one of them. And so over the course of the 70s, circus was flourishing. And in 1981, the National Circus School of Montreal, you know, was formed in Montreal. And it is the National Circus School of Montreal, not the National Circus School of Canada, but it is. And it's also called Encouragement Cirque, and it exists today as the most highly respected circus training school in the world. Across the street is an institution that formed three years later in Montreal. Cirque du Soleil and its international headquarters are across the street from enc and they also share a campus with the Tohu Theater, which is the world's most purpose built theater for circus. All this emerged because when these sort of European style circuses became part of the French identity of Quebec, the government invested in it. Because the Canadian government and the Montreal city government and the Quebec government all wanted to make sure that they maintained this identity that the Quebecers wanted and they created it and they invested in it, institutionalized it, built the school, gave Cirque du Soleil a million dollar grant

Chris Thompson:

for its first tour.

Peter Nielsen:

And therein lies the birth of a multi billion dollar industry that is still headquartered in Montreal. And you know, over the next 25 years, it moved in across the United States, toured around the United States, eventually settled and built many theaters and shows in Las Vegas. And I think Cirque du Soleil does what I've been told, about 85% of its revenue in the United States. So what happened then in the last 20 years since that all happened, is that all kinds of kids across America got exposed to this new style of circus. And it's a circus that doesn't have elephants and tigers and bears anymore, and doesn't really kind of travel with tents that move from town to town by the railroad. It's this European style circus that emphasizes the sort of highest levels of human achievement, whether it's in movement or in daring, or in risk taking, or in magic, or in Theater, it's the whole sort of point of circus is what can a human being achieve and what is that experience like and how do you make that into art and entertainment and performance? And that's just a big shift from the sort of, you know, white faced, goofy clowns with big shoes running around sweeping up elephant mess, you know, so that's what, that's how sort of contemporary circus shift shifted what American circus is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My understanding is that your son is actually one of the best in the world at a specific way of throwing things in the air. I think this is what I'm. I don't want to call it juggling because I'm not sure that's what it's actually called, but tell me about this.

Peter Nielsen:

He would call himself a juggler when he's using just sort of street language. He studies object manipulation at Ecole national de Cirque. And the specific prop that he focuses on primarily is the Diablo. And the Diablo looks like an hourglass of sorts, and it's essentially a sphere cut in half with the poles connected with a small axle. And it's made out of some kind of rubber or vinyl or something. It's the contemporary version of the Chinese yo yo. So what, you know, so what he does is he has these and he, he can use 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, however many he chooses to have in his act. Most people just use one and unless they're into this advanced performance. And he has two sticks in his hand that are connected by a string that's about five or six feet long. And he, that axel of the Diablo kind of travels on his string and he performs that. You know, sort of how he's become so talented at it is by bringing his own style to it. He studied a little bit of modern dance and ballet and he, he's just got the moves really. And, and he sort of adapted his own sort of personal aesthetic to the use of this prop and created a very unique performance style with it. And then he's also mastered the, all the tricks and all the sort of ways you can operate the prop. But it's, it's like in a lot of contemporary circus, it's those two things combined. You have a sort of aesthetic that you develop that's unique and personal. And then you have this training of how to actually technically master it. And when you can bring those things together into a, an original performance using an ancient prop, then you're kind of creating something new.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm really enjoying hearing about this because my son, who's 21. He was very active, he was very daring. He would have been the kid on the tricycle. But unlike you, I did not have a friend who was a stilt walker. So my son did more traditional route, which was baseball, soccer, basketball. And there was something really great about that and something, you know, he learned a lot from being on all those teams. He got very good, but. But he no longer does it. And there wasn't, you know, he was a pitcher, but that was about as personal as it got. And there really wasn't much of an aesthetic, at least not at that level. So to hear that your son is actually pursuing something that felt so resonant with him, that makes me happy that we offer that to kids these days.

Peter Nielsen:

Yeah. And I can tell you a little bit of a story about sort of a specific moment in Noah's sort of, you know, evolution as a human being. There was, Noah did a lot of that other stuff too. You know, he put, you know, he was a good lacrosse player, good skier, park skier, and did a lot of skateboarding, mountain biking, pretty much anything. He was into the traditional things. But when he went to Circus Smirkis camp, there was a. And he was about 12 at the time, 11 or 12. And there was this coach there who was about seven or eight years older than Noah. So he was probably, you know, 19, and he had been through Circus Smirkus and he basically was looking for something for Noah to do. And he gave Noah this Diablo and said, try this. And he came back a couple hours later and Noah had been working on it for two hours. And Noah tells me this story, I hear this story once in a while and, and this coach, his name's Eric Bates, Eric said to Noah, wow, you're really good at that. You should stick with it. And as Noah said, he could have been doing anything at that moment, but being a 12 year old boy and a 19 year old young man comes up to you and says, you're pretty good at that, you should stick with it. He said, you know, Noah's like, that's why I'm still doing it today, you know, because somebody recognized that, told me to not stop. So that's sort of, you know, that's a big piece of what, you know, when we talk about our kids and how they discover what it is they're going to do, that sort of mentor that you discover, whether it's a very opportunistic time or perhaps a very vulnerable time, is discovering that mentor and having them, you see something in them that makes you respect them and Then they see something in you that sense makes, encourages you. That's sort of where it all kind of fires up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That piece is really important to you and important to the work that you've been doing with bringing the circus here to Portland. There's going to be a youth circus element going on at Thompson's Point this summer. But what you're really interested in is more of the coaching element and really creating high level instruction. Is that right?

Peter Nielsen:

Yeah. And I think that, you know, to communicate, connect those two points you made. I think that what we see is seeing these mentorship happening all the way up a sort of ladder of development. So we have very young kids who are coming in for, you know, we actually have five to seven year old programs. We also have, you know, sort of a 7 to 12 year old. And then we get into our high school kids. So we have these, we have these sort of paths that kids can keep progressing up through different levels of beginner, intermediate, advanced. And then we have, we, we began this year our college club and that was kids who were involved in going to college in this area or at least being college age. And they were invited to come Friday nights and all work together with kids their own age. And on Sundays we have open gym for them. And this sort of group of 19 to 25 year olds started working on circus with our coaches. And a lot of our coaches are like 35 and 40, 40 and they've toured with Cirque du Soleil and they've already had these careers. So we have a continuum from 5 to 45 of people kind of helping people just younger than them kind of move up. And so what we have going on this summer with these coaches that we have in place now is we developed a lot of kids in our college club to not only learn a lot of the techniques and acrobatics and different styles of, of performing circus tricks, et cetera, circus activities. And we've now asked them to come and they are shadowing our coaches in the teaching the younger kids. And this summer we have about eight college age students who are going to be coaching our summer camps and they are going to be mentored by our 35 to 40 year old performing artists that are visiting us. And together we're going to create, you know, a whole community here on Thompson Point that involves a lot of circus camps and a lot of circus, then in the evening a lot of adult circus classes. And our goal over the course of the summer is to pull out those people from those different groups who really want to Perform. And we'll be creating and staging performances. And we have everything lined up from, you know, kids shows by the kids and for other kids to Circus nightclub that we intend to build and really kind of power forward within the fall on Thompson Point.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I was growing up, there were the music and drama and art people, and then there were the athletes. And then there were some of us that did music and drama and art and were also athletes. There wasn't that middle ground. What you're describing right now is that middle ground you're describing, that true integration of art, aesthetic, physical, kinesthetic. It's really pretty amazing to hear what you're describing.

Peter Nielsen:

Yeah, you're kind of hitting the nail on the head. And that's where. That's the value that I saw in circus. And that was the culture that really attracted me to this. Because as my son got more involved in it and as he sort of hit that age of, you know, sort of 17, 18, and having all his friends come to the house and stay for a while, they were from all over because they're were traveling with circus, mirkus, et cetera. And I got to see this sort of, you know, community, this sort of culture of teenage kids who were super athletes, just, you know, they could. They could have made any varsity team they wanted to, but what they were into was this art form. And I began to kind of watch this and say, you know, this is just unusual to find really artistic, aesthetic kids who are really. Can talk to you for a long time about a painting or about a book they read or something, but are also, you know, just incredibly gifted at using their bodies. And that was interesting. But then I started observing sort of what the rest of that culture, what the other attributes of that culture included. And I found really intelligent kids, like off the charts, like, intelligence and also a real do it yourself culture that was willing to sort of take on anything. Like, you know, they, like. They started. All these kids, you know, would build their own equipment, build their own props. They got into, you know, they were designing their own costumes, built. They were just sort of do it yourselfers. And then they also. They also had this sort of determination, like they were in control of their own destinies. And they were just sort of like, not just extreme sports kids, but kind of like extreme humans. And that I found really captivating as a sort of culture that I realized was coming from this sort of combination of having this very physical world and being in control of their physical world, having good relationships with their bodies and good control over what they did with it. And that motivated them also to be very sort of nutrition conscious, wellness conscious. But then they were also very visionary. And I saw that the combination of these two parts was just really the integration of the whole sort of mind, body, spirit connection. And that what I was witnessing was that when you have that sort of whole triumvirate of your being in balance, then you get this sort of surplus positive creativity. And that's where I see circus arts and what the opportunity that circus brings to anybody. You know, it's when you can be, you know, be socially engaged with other people collaborating on something and really feeling that, you know, the sort of sense of spirit that that will bring. You're physically, you know, working your body and training to do well with, you know, with what you're doing, with your movement and your strength. And then you're also, you know, using your brain and your mind to really look at how to achieve what you're trying to achieve achieve. And it's been measured that there's actually cognitive development that happens with focus on juggling and things like that. So this sort of like, it's a really cool culture when you can bring those two worlds together. And the other beautiful thing is that it really brings community together as a result. Because like some of the shows we do, we get people showing up just because they're into these, see the hand to hand act, the partner acrobatics act, and to see what people can do. And it's all. It's a physical culture. And they go from that to a hockey game or to even a boxing match or something. And then you have other people who see it as a form of dance and a form of art, and they take it back and they. And they look at the, you know, the sort of European paintings that have circus in it. So to bring all that together is really part of how we hope to develop the community around the school that we're building around the conservatory. And I think that we have a little strong affinity with that and the vision for Thompson Point in Portland in general, because, you know, the way that, you know, development is kind of shaping up is to kind of bring in the best of both those worlds as well. A very artistic community and a very, you know, athletic community. And to take that, you know, kind of step back yet another step. That's what Maine is. That's why Maine's the perfect place for this. Because a lot of people are attracted to Maine for the outdoor recreation opportunities, you know, climbing Mount Katahdin or canoeing the Allagash or something. And yet they also participate in the creative economy and enjoy the sort of quality of life that that creative economy offers. So that's kind of one of the reasons we came here to do this, is that because circus does bring in both of those worlds into one.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

For people who are interested, you are doing a first Friday Friday that's coming up in June.

Peter Nielsen:

Yep. First Friday we'll be in the Congress Square park next to the Eastland Weston or the Weston Eastland, whatever it is, and across from the museum. And we'll be in there and we'll have all kinds of people that are part of our circus community. Both our professional performing artists and some of the younger students will all be performing together and demonstrating what it is we do. And they get to show off a little bit and show you what their skills are, are and show you what the acts that they've developed over, you know, depends how long they've been involved with it, but it'd be a good show.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How can people find out about the Circus Conservatory of America? Do you have a website?

Peter Nielsen:

We do@circusconservatory.org and there's all kinds of information in there about our summer camps and our adult programs and the performances we have coming up. And if you're local to Portland, you can just swing into Thompson's Point and you'll find our building in front of, you know, right there. And we're in there a lot. And, you know, we don't mind people coming in and checking out what we have going on.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Peter Nielsen, who is the president of the Circus Conservatory of America. And I'm really excited by what you're doing. I really appreciate that you've had this type of vision and you brought it to Maine. And I'm glad that you have a friend who is a stilt walker.

Peter Nielsen:

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine radio show number 194 under the big top. Our guests have included Chris Thompson and Peter Nielsen. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed under the Big Top. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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