Deafblind Circus, 1969 Film

Historical information

“Deafblind Circus,” is a short, Perkins-produced film that documents students and staff of the Perkins Deafblind Department putting on a circus in 1969. The film is 9 minutes long, shot in 16mm, in color, and includes sound. It is part of the series called “The World of Deaf-Blind Children,” which also includes the film “How They Communicate.”

The film was shot behind the Keller-Sullivan Cottage on the Watertown campus. The first deafblind circus occurred in 1967 but this was not filmed. The 1969 performance was open to the public, allowing the students to showcase their abilities to the community. It is described in the 1974 Perkins Annual Report as illustrating the need children who are deafblind have for social and group activity. The film was distributed for educational use.

The children made many of the costumes, props, and performed in the circus along with the teachers. The 1969 Perkins Annual Report states that the students in the Deafblind Department talked about this circus for a long time afterward. One student who was deaflbind, Chan Poh Lin wrote a poem about the circus, called “The Circus of 1969”,  which was published in the June 1969 issues of The Lantern. Poh Lin had neither spoken nor heard English before she lost both sight and hearing in Singapore. “The circus of 1969” by Chan Poh Lin:

The shouting, laughing, screaming and crying sounded as bells ringing: It is heard, it is seen as fairies Dancing in the air as moving stars: A penny dropped on the child’s hand, His smile brightened as the sunshine: His little thank is always as a reward The child’s running with a gentle smile. It reminds its admirer as nothing so wonderful As the world is imagined in its sense: Fun is the day as it is But it fades away as a faded rose: O, day come, o, day come back as it never been a day before: There comes the cries as bells ringing forever. Please, don’t destroy my writing, Dr. Waterhouse, because it takes my whole thought. Sincerely yours, Poh Lin 

1969 Perkins Annual Report

Sources

• “Department for Deafblind Children.” Perkins School for the Blind Annual Report, 1969,  pp. 10-13. The Internet Archive
• “Films from the Perkins School for the Blind.” Perkins School for the Blind Annual Report, 1974,  pp. 14. The Internet Archive
• “The Perkins Deaf-Blind Department Circus.” The Lantern, 1967, vol. 37, no. 1, Sept. 1967, pp. 31. The Internet Archive
• “The Perkins Film Library.” The Lantern, 1967, vol. 44, no. 2, March. 1975, pp. 12-16. The Internet Archive

Descriptive transcript

The World of Deaf-Blind Children: The Deaf-Blind Circus

The film begins with 20 seconds of black frame.

A title card appears over a pinwheel of swirling red, white, gold, and black:

The World of Deaf-Blind Children.

The Deaf-Blind Circus

Now a plastic pinwheel spins in the wind.

Photography: M.W. Bellows; R.M. Campbell

Edited by Elizabeth Chromec and Mike Campbell

Music is playing.

Title: Filmed at the Perkins School for the Blind – Watertown, Massachusetts

Near a playground, a crowd waits for a show.

Interposing voices of a crowd.

A cardboard “Tickets” booth is decorated with balloons. And a sign “Ticket price – 1 cent.”

Students wait in line for tickets. Two adults make the sales. One boy waits in a wheelchair. He wears glasses, and braces on his legs. The children are dressed in slacks and casual shirts.

At the table, the ticket seller wears a handmade visor decorated with flowers.

The audience take their seats around a ring made of wooden stakes and rope. 

Narrator: “You’re about to see a remarkable circus, not because the acts are unusual but because the children performing them are most unusual and very special. The performers in this circus are both deaf and blind, students at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.”

In the sawdust-covered ring,  a young Ringmaster carries a Circus sign, dated May 29, 1969. He wears a black top hat and swallow-tailed coat. He has a large whistle on a string around his neck. His sign is a hand-lettered poster on a wooden pole: Deaf Blind Dept. May 29, 1969, Perkins School for the Blind, and a drawing of a clown with large ears. In the corners of the sign, the words “Circus.”

A  lion tamer, wearing a pith helmet and khaki jacket carries a whip. He pulls a cardboard cage balanced on a wagon through the sawdust. 

Two student crouch inside the cage. Both are dressed as circus cats.

Teachers and other guests stand just outside the rope line. Some sit with students on the ground. 

The cat costumes are handmade. 

A student wears a leopard-print coverall with a tail. She exits the rolling cage and kneels to the ground.

A lion backs out of the cage as the lion tamer nudges her with his whip. She wears tan pants with a tail, and a tan hooded top with a black mane.

The lion tamer leads them through their tricks on a series of stacked boxes, which the animals climb on their hands and knees. Beside them, the audience watches. Some take photos as they lean on a giant truck tire near a fence.

The leopard kneels on 3 stacked boxes, while the lion crouches on two in front of her, before stepping toward a lower box. 

Later, the two cats climb through a ring of paper flames that the lion-tamer holds near the ground.

The lion scoops up handfuls of sawdust.

The Lion-Tamer holds another hoop, covered with paper, in his gloved hands.  The lion pushes her head through the paper and crawls through the hoop.

The audience applauds.

Narrator: “With their teachers, they have produced this circus for the Perkins community. Through their performances, they are communicating with their audience, and in appreciation, their audience communicates back. For these children, this give and take, is a vital step into a social world.”

Now the leopard tries another hoop.  She presses her head against the paper. It refuses to tear. The leopard and lion tamer try repositioning the hoop,  and she finally tears through.

The audience applauds.

Narrator: “Of course, everything does not always go as rehearsed, but humoring the audience can be as rewarding as thrilling them. And while the cats may not be genuine, the applause is.”

Behind the big tire, a man with a goatee and sideburns applauds. He wears a short-sleeved work shirt and a necktie with his brown slacks. Beside him, a girl about 5 or 6 years old claps along. She has blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and wears glasses. She has a pink and blue ruffled tutu. She points at the ring and speaks to the man beside her.

Later, 2 children act out the Miss Muffet nursery rhyme. A girl wears a colonial-style cotton cap and long skirt. She sits on a stool, pretending to eat from a bowl with an oversized spoon. All around the ring, children watch the scene.

Another child dressed in a black spider costume creeps toward her. He walks with his hands and feet touching the ground. The spider costume is black leggings and a long-sleeved black tunic.  Four extra fabric “legs” are attached to the tunic. On his head, the spider wears a black cap with two long orange fangs that nearly cover his face.

The audience laughs as Miss Muffet hungrily eats from her bowl with an oversized spoon. All the while, the spider circles her, reaching out for her. In the audience, small boy wears dark glasses and a hearing aid. A teacher sits beside him and draws his attention to the scene.

Elsewhere in the crowd, a woman sits on the ground with her elbow propped on a baby’s stroller.

Miss Muffet continues to spoon from her bowl, stalked by the spider.  When she finally notices him, she cries out and pushes past him, then bounds up and scurries away. The crowd begins to applaud.

In another act, children are costumed as pigs. 

A teacher vigorously beats a bass drum as the three performers come to the ring in a line, their hands joined. 

Their costumes are brown dresses. Two of the children wear floor-length costumes, fringed at the bottom. The third has a shorter dress, hemmed above her knees. Wide pink tails hang behind. On their heads, the children wear pink fabric masks that fully cover their heads. The masks have wide-eyed faces, ears and snouts, made of construction paper.

A teacher helps them arrange themselves on hands and knees on the ground. They scurry forward. Shortly afterward, in the sawdust ring, they jump excitedly, holding hands.

Narrator: “The blind can learn with their ears, the deaf with their eyes. But when a child has both visual and auditory impairment, the combination, even though it be slight, is so devastating that those children need special programs, such as the program for the deaflbind at Perkins. The children in this circus have varying degrees of deafness and blindness. A few are totally deaf and blind. Some have partial sight or hearing. For all of them, learning is a very difficult process. Shut off from the world by their handicap, the deafblind depend on their teachers to open the door.”

Later, the Ringmaster blows his whistle and points his cane.

The scene dissolves to a girl on a swing. She wears a sequined tutu and a feather in her hair. She also wears a hearing aid. She makes theatrical sweeping gestures with her right arm.

An adult stops the moving swing. Her face is unseen as she adjusts the girl’s orange and red feathers.  The girl hands her a plastic sandwich bag, then reaches up to feel her headband.

A group of four teachers looks on. 

Narrator: “Long hard hours are spent in the classroom. Instruction is usually on a one-and-and one basis with language and some form of communication the goal, for communication is the deafblind child’s key to the world.”

In the ring, the girl in sequins performs with the leopard and a costumed elephant.  His costume is baggy gray pants and a long gray top, with a gray hood, complete with elephant’s trunk.

The three hold long bands – each holding one end – and prance clockwise in a circle on the sawdust.  Coming together in the center, they raise their hands, then march back.

On the sidelines, School Director Edward Waterhouse watches, smiling. He wears a brown suit and patterned necktie.

In another act, a magician saws a volunteer in half!

The volunteer, a middle school boy in street clothes, lies down inside a painted cardboard box, which lies on a table decorated with red and white paper streamers. The Ringmaster checks in on him as the Magician approaches wielding a large saw, fashioned from cardboard.

The Magician is a student in a paper fez, and a striped cape. His face is painted with a goatee.

With one hand, he guides the edge of the saw to the box, where a pre-made slit can be seen. He then begins to “saw” through the box. The table wobbles with his effort, and the Ringmaster steadies it.

The Magician saws through the box, now with a two-handed effort. The smiling audience applauds. 

The Magician at one end of the box, and the Ringmaster at the other, lift the box lid. The volunteer stands, intact!

Narrator: “A deafblind child, like any child, has innate emotions, which become meaningful only when expressed and shared with others. The circus became a new way for the children to satisfy their need for self-expression. Here, they communicate, not just with a teacher, but with an audience and one another. Participation in the circus brought them further into the human world of interaction and out of their world of isolation.”

Now the boy who previously played the Elephant takes photos of the audience enjoying refreshments. They lift their cups and pose. With his Elephant mask off, the student holds a camera to his eye. He leans back to frame his snapshot.

A moment later, he repositions to take another photo.

Meanwhile, in the ring, a teenaged girl with glasses uses a giant prop camera to take snapshots of a clown. She wears a straw hat with a shaggy turned-up brim. The clown has a bald crown with long red hair. The clown stands for the prop camera (and some real ones!) , their back to us.

A front view of the clown shows painted eyebrows and a bulging red nose on a clown mask the student wears over their own glasses. The student-clown laughs.

Narrator: “Teachers and children worked out acts, made costumes, and constructed props. Here was a chance to combine work and fun. The learning process for the deafblind is a continuous process which should have no classroom boundaries. When you can’t bring the experience into the classroom, it’s time to go outside and find it, or create it. But the teacher must continually seek new and imaginative ways to bring the students into social situations. Permeating the entire educational process of deafblind children is the overriding necessity of producing members of society, and not lonely, isolated creatures. The loneliness of the deafblind can be a terrible burden. The burden of ignorance is light in comparison. Both burdens need lifting to the greatest extent possible.”

The photographer with the straw hat shakes a can of shaving cream, while a teacher sits in front of her. He wears a white smock covered in red smears. Behind him, the red-haired clown combs the man’s hair with a red comb two feet long! The photographer is now a barber, as she sprays cream onto the man’s face. He laughs with his mouth held tightly closed as she covers his entire face with white foam.

The barber shaves it off with a cardboard knife, nearly as big as the comb.

In a close-up, we see she has facepaint as well: black smears on forehead and chin, and a red-painted nose. She wipes foam from her shaving knife after each swipe, laughing as she does.

By the big tire, a boy in “Perkins Physical Education” gear stands over a short barbell – really a black-painted rod with foam weights on the end. Two men talk with him.

In the audience, kids sit on the ground, as teachers and other adults stand behind them.

The “Phys-Ed” Boy, his shoulders stuffed with padding, lifts the barbell over his head. As the audience claps, he slowly lowers it to the ground.

Another boy approaches it. He hitches up his pants as he bends over to dray his hands with sawdust. He is younger, with a slight figure and bald head. Padding bulges under his shoulders and thighs. In a series of short jerks, he lifts the barbell high overhead. The weighted end is labelled “302 lbs.”  

The audience applauds as he puts it back on the ground.

The Narrator: “Of course, the real humor in this circus, as in any children’s circus, comes from the interaction of the performers and the audience. Each knows the circus is make believe, but neither will admit it. The weight lifter lifts his weights, and the audience applauds, as if there could be no doubt that the barbell weighs 302 pounds.”

Later, the same boy leads a Volkswagen Beetle by a string. The car is black, with paper covering the windshield and windows, to hide the interior.

In the audience, a woman helps a preschool girl in her lap clap her hands.

The Elephant opens the passenger and the performers emerge:

A teenage girl in a miniskirt, wearing dark glasses and carrying a snack bag of popcorn. She grins as a teacher reaches forward for her hands.

The Lion, is followed by the Ringmaster, who directs him away from the car. The Ringmaster pats the lion’s back.

Ringmaster stays by the car to help the others as they emerge from the car, one after the other:

A girl in a long prairie dress and bonnet, carrying a fan

The girl with sequined tutu and feathered headdress.

A boy with a wig made of coiled rope. He wears a black shirt and tights, covered by a makeshift Indian dhoti

A little girl dressed all in pink follows. She turns and waits for another student, a short-haired girl in a skirt and blouse.

The Spider exits, holding back his many legs.

The Ringmaster guides the head of another boy out of the tiny car. A teacher comes forward to guide him off. She then scoops up a little girl and carries her away.

The Magician’s volunteer emerges. He looks over his shoulder a moment before walking out of frame.

The Ringmaster bumps his head as he reaches in to lift out a preschooler in a rainbow-colored tutu. 

Behind her, a small boy with a feather headband. The Ringmaster rubs his forehead, then helps Miss Muffet out.

The Ringmaster checks the backseat, then shuts the car door.

Narrator: “The deafblind children of this world are comparatively few in number. The space they occupy is both literally and figuratively small, just an arms-length world. But they are very special children. If we are to enlarge their world, we must never lose sight of the fact that these deafblind children are human beings and depend for their humanness on interaction with other human beings.”

Music is playing.

A title: The End. A Campbell Films Production.

Fade to Black.

Related resources

• Presenting Perkins, The films of Robert M. Campbell