Abstract
This article aims at understanding Circus as a creative device in order to provide an alternative approach to the study of contemporary circus creation. To this effect and from a plural, multidisciplinary perspective, the article will be organised in four main parts. Justifying Circus as a device for staging the relationship between the human beings and the force of gravity; specifying why this relationship is indeed at the very core of human beings’ experience and identity matters; contextualising nouveau cirque within the evolution of artistic avant-gardes from post-modern currents to our days; and providing a series of practical examples of these first two points by studying selected works from a series of contemporary artists. Such approach evidences Circus’ aesthetics of risk as a convergence point for researches in corporeality and performativity, while allowing a parallel study on the problematic of gravity as an essential condition for human identity. From both its physical and poetic aspects, this subject evolves radically through the late 20th century to the paradigms of our present, as it is visible in the work of active artists such as Aurélien Bory, Kitsou Dubois, Maria Donata D’Urso, Chloé Moglia, Yoann Bourgeois or Inbal Ben Haim.
Highlights
As I was sitting there alone, for a moment, I was drawn to the glass walls that separate the rooms of INAEM. These walls are decorated with the written words teatro, danza, lírica, música, circo (Spanish for theatre, dance, lyrical theatre, music and circus), which are the disciplines for which the institution provides funding, circuits and prizes
This article aims at understanding Circus as a creative device in order to provide an alternative approach to the study of contemporary circus creation
Acrobats and circus people are everyday performers of sequences of stable and dynamic states, bound with moments of rupture, imbalance and danger (Goudard, 2013). This means that, whether the performer uses objects or an apparatus in the mise en scène or not, each act includes a series of motion, pauses, and transitions of acrobatic gesture that evolve through different ways of managing weight – the performer’s own body, that of the partner, the manipulated object – showcasing an inexorable pull towards the ground, in other words, the force of gravity
Summary
As I was sitting there alone, for a moment, I was drawn to the glass walls that separate the rooms of INAEM These walls are decorated with the written words teatro, danza, lírica, música, circo (Spanish for theatre, dance, lyrical theatre, music and circus), which are the disciplines for which the institution provides funding, circuits and prizes. The Ministry of Culture’s first regulations for Circus grants and a national prize appeared in 1990, while the first general development plan for Circus at a national level was not put into practice until 2011 This case is just the Spanish example of the late inclusion of circus arts in national institutions of culture, which partially explains why it is often seen as an underrated branch of the arts in academia. Stating and justifying Circus as a device and studying its main subject, integrating nouveau cirque and contemporary Circus within the history of art from post-modern currents to our days, and displaying practical examples of these first two points by studying selected work from a series of artists that are active today
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