Avant-garde gestures and contemporaneity in today’s circus

Contemporary circus, drawing on traditional practices, apparatuses, and a number of their spectacular conventions, emphasises the performance of exceptional human acrobatic feats, ingenuity, or spectacular, often counter-intuitive inventiveness. The contemporary is not necessarily of the avant-garde...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Santos, Milena Pereira dos, Leroux, Louis Patrick
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC)
Repositorio:Urdimento (Online)
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai::article/23179
Acceso en línea:https://www.revistas.udesc.br/index.php/urdimento/article/view/23179
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Circo contemporâneo
Avant-garde
História do circo
Novas práticas circenses
Contemporary circus
History of circus
New circus practices
Circo contemporáneo
Historia del circo
Nuevas prácticas circenses
Descripción
Sumario:Contemporary circus, drawing on traditional practices, apparatuses, and a number of their spectacular conventions, emphasises the performance of exceptional human acrobatic feats, ingenuity, or spectacular, often counter-intuitive inventiveness. The contemporary is not necessarily of the avant-garde, but defining the contours and ethos of circus’s contemporaneity help explore its manifestations of the avant-garde. There are examples on the edges, where circus and dance, burlesque, performance art, non-acting and political engagement coexist. Most of the avant-garde practices are featured at international festivals. They are not outside of the norms, they actually set them. This chapter explores the intersection and, at times, complicated cohabitation between conception of the contemporary and of the avant-garde in current circus practice and reception. It first defines and contextualises contemporaneity in today’s circus, then proposes a dialectics of contemporary circus and concludes with enactments of the avant-garde and how they relate to our current understanding of circus.