The Routledge Circus Studies Reader

The Routledge Circus Studies Reader offers an absorbing critical introduction 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 sub-sections, 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 performance, including pieces by Philippe Petit and Friedrich Nietzsche, are included alongside more recent scholarship in the field. Edited by two scholars whose work is strongly connected to the dynamic world of performance, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader is an essential teaching and study resource for the emerging discipline of circus studies. It also provides a stimulating introduction to the field for lovers of circus.

In this volume, twenty-four creators come together with three scholars to discuss Contemporary Circus, bridging the divide between practice and theory. Lavers, Leroux, and Burtt offer conversations across four key themes: Apparatus, Politics, Performers, and New Work. Extensively illustrated with fifty photos of Contemporary Circus productions, and extensively annotated, Contemporary Circus thematically groups and contextualises extracts of conversations to provide a sophisticated and wide-ranging study supported by critical theory. Of interest to both practitioners and scholars, Contemporary Circus uses the lens of ‘contestation,’ or calling things into question, to provide a portal into ways of seeing today’s circus performance. Conversations with: Lachlan Binns and Jascha Boyce (Gravity and Other Myths), Tilde Björfors (Cirkus Cirkör), Kim ‘Busty Beatz’ Bowers (Hot Brown Honey), Shana Carroll (The 7 Fingers), David Clarkson (Stalker), Philippe Decouflé (Compagnie DCA), Fez Faanana (Briefs), Mike Finch (Circus Oz), Daniele Finzi Pasca (Compagnia Finzi Pasca), Sean Gandini (Gandini Juggling), Firenza Guidi (ElanFrantoio, NoFit State Circus), Jo Lancaster and Simon Yates (Acrobat), Johann Le Guillerm (Cirque Ici), Yaron Lifschitz (Circa), Chelsea McGuffin (Company 2), Phia Ménard (Compagnie Non Nova), Jennifer Miller (Circus Amok), Adrien Mondot (Compagnie Adrien M and Claire B), Charlotte Mooney and Tina Koch (Ockham’s Razor), Philippe Petit (high wire artist), and Elizabeth Streb (STREB EXTREME ACTION).

The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance provides a cutting-edge, comprehensive overview of the foundations, epistemologies, methodologies, key topics and current debates, and future directions in the field. It brings together work from the disciplines of anthropology and performance studies, as well as adjacent fields. Across 31 chapters, a diverse range of international scholars cover topics including: Ritual Theater Storytelling Music Dance Textiles Land Acknowledgments Indigenous Identity Visual Arts Embodiment Cognition Healing Festivals Politics Activism The Law Race and Ethnicity Gender and Sexuality Class Religion, Spirituality, and Faith Disability Leisure, Gaming, and Sport In addition, the included Appendix offers tools, exercises, and activities designed by contributors as useful suggestions to readers, both within and beyond academic contexts, to take the insights of performance anthropology into their work. This is a valuable reference for scholars and upper-level students in anthropology, performance studies, and related disciplines, including religious studies, art, philosophy, history, political science, gender studies, and education.

This collection aims to map a diversity of approaches to the artform by creating a 360° view on the circus. The three sections of the book, Aesthetics, Practice, Culture, approach aesthetic developments, issues of artistic practice, and the circus’ role within society. This book consists of a collection of articles from renowned circus researchers, junior researchers, and artists. It also provides the core statements and discussions of the conference UpSideDown—Circus and Space in a graphic recording format. Hence, it allows a clear entry into the field of circus research and emphasizes the diversity of approaches that are well balanced between theoretical and artistic point of views. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of circus studies, emerging disciples of circus and performance.

An authoritative introduction to the specialised histories of the modern circus, its unique aesthetics, and its contemporary manifestations and scholarship, from its origins in commercial equestrian performance, to contemporary inflections of circus arts in major international festivals, educational environments, and social justice settings.

This book examines how circus and circus imaginary have shaped the historical avant-gardes at the beginning of the 20th century and the cultures they help constitute, to what extent this is a mutual shaping, and why this is still relevant today. This book aims to produce a better sense of the artistic work and cultural achievements that have emerged from the interplay of circus and avant-garde artists and projects, and to clarify both their transhistorical and trans-medial presence, and their scope for interdisciplinary expansion. Across 14 chapters written by leading scholars – from fields as varied as circus, theatre and performance studies, art, media studies, film and cultural history – some of which are written together with performers and circus practitioners, the book examines to what extent circus and avant-garde connections contribute to a better understanding of early 20th century artistic movements and their enduring legacy, of the history of popular entertainment, and the cultural relevance of circus arts. Circus and the Avant-Gardes elucidates how the realm of the circus as a model, or rather a blueprint for modernist experiment, innovation and (re)negotiation of bodies, has become fully integrated in our ways of perceiving avant-gardes today. The book does not only map the significance of circus/avant-garde phenomena for the past, but, through an exploration of their contemporary actualisations (in different media), also carves out their achievements, relevance, and impact, both cultural and aesthetic, on the present time.

This book explores the circus as a site in and through which science and technology are represented in popular culture. Across eight chapters written by leading scholars – from fields as varied as performance and circus studies, art, media and cultural history, and engineering – the book discusses to what extent the engineering of circus and performing bodies can be understood as a strategy to promote awe, how technological inventions have shaped circus and the cultures it helps constitute, and how much of a mutual shaping this is. What kind of cultural and aesthetic effects does engineering in circus contexts achieve? How do technological inventions and innovations impact on the circus? How does the link between circus and technology manifest in representations and interpretations – imaginaries – of the circus in other media and popular culture? Circus, Science and Technology examines the ways circus can provide a versatile frame for interpreting our relationship with technology.