{"id":40123,"date":"2016-07-12T13:27:27","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T17:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=40123"},"modified":"2016-07-12T13:27:27","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T17:27:27","slug":"brock-research-team-studies-the-evolution-of-circus-performers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/07\/brock-research-team-studies-the-evolution-of-circus-performers\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock research team studies the evolution of circus performers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flying trapeze artists, elephants standing on one foot while balancing a ball, jugglers, sword swallowers, bearded ladies:\u00a0these are among the images of the traditional travelling circus.<\/span><\/p>\n

The circus is still going strong today and has gone\u00a0mainstream. Think Cirque du Soleil, the Montreal-based entertainment company that has become a worldwide phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis positive news for circus companies, artists and audiences with a taste for thrilling entertainment also raises questions about circuses\u2019 historic status as site for the celebration and exploitation of differences, from stagings of exceptional performing bodies to the display of \u2018freakery,\u2019\u201d says Assistant Professor of Dramatic Arts Karen Fricker.<\/p>\n

Fricker is part of an international team of academics, artists and producers researching the relationship of contemporary circus to the widespread practice in traditional circus of featuring people with unusual physical features, such as Siamese twins, women who grow beards, and in extreme cases, people living with a disease or condition that exaggerates certain body parts.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a large history of profound racism, sexism and ableism that I don\u2019t think is present in contemporary circus in the same way, mostly because contemporary ideologies are very transformed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team is interested in the ways in which today\u2019s circus artists relate to this \u201cfreak show\u201d tradition. Fricker is one of three leaders of the project, called \u201cCircus and its Others,\u201d along with Charles Batson of Union College, in New York and L. Patrick Leroux of Concordia University.<\/p>\n

This month, they are co-organizing a conference about this subject as part of the Montreal Compl\u00e8tement Cirque Festival, with the assistance of two Brock graduate students, Hayley Rose Malouin and Taylor Zajdlik.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a large history of profound racism, sexism and ableism that I don\u2019t think is present in contemporary circus in the same way, mostly because contemporary ideologies are very transformed,\u201d says Malouin. \u201cHowever, it\u2019s interesting to see how some of those elements of sideshow \u2018freakishness\u2019 and how we view those born bodies finds its way into contemporary circus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fricker explains that circuses are, in essence, \u201cvariety shows\u201d that feature highly-trained people with extraordinary skills performing daring, risky and spectacular feats.<\/p>\n

These acts are very physical; as a result, a lot of attention is focused on performers\u2019 bodies. In traditional circuses, this focus extended to viewing bodies that were born unusual or made different from diseases or other factors beyond someone\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

But societies eventually became more aware of the struggles and rights of people living with physical challenges, and also increasingly became more sensitive to animal exploitation. For example, after 145 years of featuring elephants in its circus acts, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey announced<\/a> that it has plans to retire its elephant herd by 2018.<\/p>\n

The creation of Cirque du Soleil was a turning point in circus history. In the early 1980s, a troupe \u201cjuggled, danced, breathed fire and played music\u201d for audiences in Baie-Saint-Paul near Quebec City, says the group\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the performers, Guy Lalibert\u00e9, took the show on the road in 1984 to celebrate the 450th<\/sup> anniversary of Jacques Cartier\u2019s discovery of Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show was a striking, dramatic mix of circus arts (without animals) and street performance that featured wild, outrageous costumes, magical lighting, and original music,\u201d according to the website. Notably, one of the key features that distinguishes Cirque du Soleil from traditional circus is that it does not include animal acts, and rarely puts born difference on display in its shows.<\/p>\n

Zajdlik says contemporary circuses such as Soleil largely feature \u201cachieved bodies,\u201d bodies \u201ctransformed into these powerful vessels that become circus performers\u201d through intensive physical training.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we gazing upon these spectacular bodies because they represent something that we nostalgically long for in what the freak once gave us?\u201d says Zajdlik. \u201cFrom aerial feats to contortions, these bodies are doing extraordinary things that you would not normally get to see. In a way, that kind-of represents what the \u2018freak\u2019 once represented for circus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers note that there are circuses that feature unusual bodies, but in a very different way than in the past.<\/p>\n

The keynote speaker at this month\u2019s conference is Jennifer Miller<\/a>, who founded Circus Amok in New York City and is also a professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

Miller has had a beard since her early 20s. She is known as the \u201cBearded Lady,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0who uses her performances to \u201cask people who look at her to think critically about what they understand as normatively female or male, masculine or feminine,\u201d says Fricker.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe challenges those boundaries,\u201d says Fricker. \u201cWe\u2019re in the age of gender fluidity. I think she speaks from, and to that, culture in an interesting way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Circus and its Others conference <\/a>will be held in Montreal July 15 to 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flying trapeze artists, elephants standing on one foot while balancing a ball, jugglers, sword swallowers, bearded ladies: these are among the images of the traditional travelling circus.
\nThe circus is still going strong today and has gone mainstream. Think Cirque du Soleil, the Montreal-based entertainment company that has become a worldwide phenomenon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":40131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,4052,1,5],"tags":[4285,4289,757,4288,656,4286,3166,4287],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40133,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40123\/revisions\/40133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}