Historically, women have played an integral role in circus from the very beginning. “There’s always been women performers in circus from the very first day it started.” explains Professor Vanessa Toulmin, Research Director of the National Fairground and Circus Archive at the University of Sheffield, author of several books on circus and showmen.

She explains: “Women could do things in the ring that they couldn’t do in traditional theatre, the circus ring was a very different zone of performance than traditional theatre.”

The art of circus has generated some incredible female performers over the years. One of those was Zazel. Known as the first ever human cannonball, Zazel’s act defied both gravity and Victorian expectations. Born Rosa Richter, she began her human cannonball act at the age of 17 at the Royal Aquarium, London (not an aquarium as we know now, but a circus venue).

Enlarge Zazel

A well known act today, the human cannonball was pioneered by Richter, her trainer The Great Farini and Victorian engineering. Zazel was hurled sixty feet into the air by a spring mechanism hidden inside the ‘cannon’. A newspaper of the time said Zazel walked ‘upon a thread the entire length of the building’ before being ‘loaded into the muzzle of a cannon and literally fired into space.’

It was estimated that she was fired from the cannon 1,343 times by the end of her career. She was to be caught by a safety net, providing the trick went to plan.

It didn’t always go to plan. On her first performance she fell from the wire to be caught by the net. Her next appearance, on the trapeze, ended with a leap into the net below. Her career ended when she missed the net after shooting off from the cannon. She survived but broke her back and was forced to retire.

Before a Victorian lack of health and safety let her down, Zazel was a popular performer. She was described in the Era Almanack newspaper in 1903 as “a beautiful young woman aged seventeen who upset Victorian sensibilities, thus ensuring her popular appeal.”

Zazel’s outfit, based on Jules Léotard’s famous streamlined costume, attracted significant attention. Contemporary reviews noted how much skin she was showing, which guaranteed an audience. Particularly an audience of men.

The line between practicality and exposing yourself can be very thin. The physical nature of circus performance demands tight fitting clothing for flexibility and the less clothing you wear, the less likely it is to get caught in your apparatus. But do performers want to be revered for their skills or for their appearance? Was it something Victorian performers thought about?

Professor Vanessa Toulmin clarifies: “Women could wear outfits in the circus that they couldn’t wear on stage. The costume itself, because of the physicality of the act, allowed greater freedom. So they couldn’t wear those costumes on stage or they were seen as a vaudeville act or burlesque show, whereas in the circus it was part of the costume, it was part of the show”.

Enlarge © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Five crocodiles appear on a stage. Controlling them, a woman with a painted green face. Koringa was the most prominent and mystical female magician of the 1940s. Billed as ‘the only female fakir in the world’, Koringa was often shrouded in mystery. Bertram Mills Circus billed her as an Indian native who had been raised in Bikanir and taught magic from an early age. Her large afro-style hair evoked the spirit and sensuality of Circassian beauties, a western obsession which had been common since the Middle Ages.

In fact, Koringa was born in Bordeaux as Renée Bernard. Her performance character came from the western fixation with Orientalism popular throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her ability to walk over broken glass, climb a ladder of sword blades and entrance live crocodiles cast a spell on audiences. At one time she was being payed more than the Prime Minister.

Outside of circus, Koringa lead an extraordinary life. She worked as an agent for the French Resistance during the Second World War and can often be seen with the Resistance’s symbolic cross painted on her face during performances.

Repelling the ‘glamorous assistant’ role women usually played in magic, Koringa was a skilled magician in her own right. She appeared as a headline star when many female performers were sideshow acts or assistants. “Koringa was spectacular because she was a magician, women magicians start about 1890s to 1930s and then they kind of stop. So Koringa was quite an amazing act like that.” Professor Vanessa explains.

Enlarge Copyright University of Sheffield Library, National Fairground and Circus Archive

Of the rare female clowns of the early twentieth century, Lulu Adams was by far the most famous. British, but born in Belgium while her parents were on tour, Lulu lived a life on the road. From a long line of circus performers on both sides, Lulu and her two siblings were destined to be in the ring.

Her mother, Martha Cashmore, was an equestrienne who ‘enjoyed fame with a pretty act in which she drove a schooled horse in a buggy with dogs running in and out of the wheel spokes and between the horse’s front and hind legs’. Lulu’s father was the clown Joe Craston, the head clown at Olympia London and the subject of many of acclaimed artist Dame Laura Knight’s sketches.

Enlarge Lulu's mother Martha Cashmore in action. Copyright University of Sheffield Library, National Fairground and Circus Archive

Lulu performed with her family until she met her husband Albert, also a clown, at 25 and ran away. They performed together as Lulu and Albertino. Although she performed with her husband, Lulu was not secondary to him. She was more famous than him, as her musical and comedic talents became well known. She grew to be more successful than her family, even. She even overshadowed her father, who was said to be delighted by her success.

Lulu and Albertino’s career together came to an end when Albert died live on air during a radio broadcast in 1948. Written in his obituary in the World’s Fair showman’s newspaper is a recount of the radio interview: ‘Lulu said of Albertino “He is a great clown, he does funny things” “Yes I do” said Albertino, and at that moment he slumped to the floor, dead.’