CIRCUS AND THE AVANT-GARDES - Symposium - Call for Papers (5-6 March 2020, Berlin) (original) (raw)

Circus Arts and the Avant-Gardes

w/k - Between Science and Art, 2020

This article examines how avant-garde artists were inspired by the circus and circus aesthetics, and used them as models for novel, polarising and sophisticated works of art. As the speakers-experts from an array of academic fields, theatre makers and circus practitioners-at the first symposium on 'Circus and the Avant-Gardes' (March 2020, Freie Universität Berlin) examined, (studying) circus and avant-garde connections contributes to a better understanding of early 20 th century artistic movements, the history of popular entertainment and the cultural relevance of circus arts.

Circus, Dada, Vaudeville. Historical avant-garde – between popular and experimental theatre

Circus and the Avant-Gardes. History, Imaginary, Innovation, 2022

This chapter explores the historical avant-garde between popular and experimental theatre strategies by considering early Dada productions. Therefore, I carve out the relationship between circus practices and experimental Dada performances and argue that vaudeville – both a genre and a technique – can be identified as a link between circus practices and Dada experiments. With this, I will exemplify the aesthetical as well as political endeavours of early Dadaists during the soirées at the Cabaret Voltaire and their experimental stagings. In order to emphasise their position between popular and experimental theatre, I will highlight their predilection for vaudeville techniques and how they are associated with cabaret and variety formats. By closely inspecting vaudeville, its genesis and – subsequently – its transformative character in all its ambivalent notions, we can then consider the historical separation of performance styles and their institutionalisation, including the differentiation of circus arts like acrobatics, skipping, magic, clowning and drama-based theatre. Seen from a historical perspective, this separation contributes to the longstanding debate between “high” and “popular” culture.

The Routledge Circus Studies Reader

Routledge eBooks, 2020

The Routledge Circus Studies Reader offers an absorbing critical introduc tion to this diverse and emerging field. It brings together the work of over 30 scholars in this discipline, including Janet Davis, Helen Stoddart and Peta Tait, to highlight and address the field's key historical, critical and theoretical issues. It is organised into three accessible sections, Perspectives, Precedents and Presents, which approach historical aspects, current issues, and the future of circus performance. The chapters, grouped together into 13 theme-based subsections , provide a clear entry point into the field and emphasise the diversity of approaches available to students and scholars of circus studies. Classic accounts of per formance, including pieces by Philippe Petit and Friedrich Nietzsche are included alongside more recent scholarship in the field. Edited by two scholars whose work is deeply rooted in the dynamic world of performance, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader is an essential teach ing and study resource for the emerging discipline of circus studies. It also provides a stimulating introduction to the field for lovers of circus.

CONTEMPORARY CIRCUS - A VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE

London International Mime Festival 2014, 2014

Circus. For me, the first association is always the happy mental image of a huge tent surrounded by wagons, spectacular acrobats swinging on the trapeze, hilarious clowns, jugglers, knife throwers, skilful riders, and the general feeling of euphoria and emotional exultation. Now, contemporary circus is something completely different. What is it, then, you may ask. This is what I asked myself when I took part in the London residency organised by Unpack The Arts and Crying Out Loud for cultural journalists. It was a privilege for me to be able to take part. Motivated by a lack of intellectual, institutional, general recognition of contemporary circus as a phenomenon, Unpack the Arts is a two-year project1 designed to bring together cultural journalists and critics through a series of residencies, creating meetings where they can exchange knowledge and experience, develop critical discourse and bolster the role of the media in contemporary circus. By presenting the discussions we had, as well as the talks with guests and the participants in the performances I saw at the London International Mime Festival, I will try to give a brief overview of circus art and the thoughts and conclusions I have formed from my perspective as a theatre critic who had not had any previous contact with contemporary circus.

Western European avant-garde theatre and puppetry : a reappraisal

Theatralia

The article addresses the question of how much the historical avant-gardes introduced radical breaks in artistic practice and can be considered as forerunners of what would happen after them. If we consider the case study of puppetry, where no homogenous tradition nor specific institutions existed at the beginning of the 20 th century, we can observe that the experiments of the Cubist, Futurist, or Dadaist poets and painters in that field did not radically differ from those of the Symbolist and Modernist circles a few decades before. In many cases the avant-garde artists, when working on puppet and marionette theatre projects, were surprisingly open to collaborate with traditional puppeteers, as well as with theatre and art institutions. The dramaturgy often followed time-honoured patterns, with the prevalence of parody and folk or fairy tales as major sources of inspiration, a focus on artistic circles and children as audiences, and a composition of the show that respected the habits of mainstream marionette theatres. Original subjects are mainly to be found in Pierre Albert-Birot's, Fortunato Depero's, and Kurt Schwitters' plays for marionettes and shadows. Yet, because many of the avant-garde artists experimenting in puppetry were painters and sculptors, they introduced a major change in the composition of puppet plays: visual transformations of the figures marked the steps of the action, alternating biomorphic and non-figurative outlines, images of living beings and of mechanical objects. Thus, they put on stage a drama that was going much further than the conditions of the productions, or the dramaturgy they were using, could do: the drama of entering into a new mechanical age, where the place for mankind had to be re-invented.