CIRCUS AND RESEARCH : A RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIP
The circus arts are at the heart of a wide range of research, with an abundance of subjects and practices that play a major role in the development and influence of our discipline!
On 9 April 2024, with a dozen or so researchers-artists-designers-engineers, we took a (very) small tour of what goes on in this world, often without anyone knowing about it. We would like to thank Naila Kuhlmann, Marie Tissot, Geneviève Dupéré, Paloma Leyton, Karine Lavoie, Emmanuel Bochud, Hayely Ward, Agathe Bisserier, Adrien Malette-Chénier, Elia Seclet, Nicolas Fortin, Sebastian Kann, Zed Cézard Keely Whitelaw, Karen Fricker and Mathilde Perahia for talking to us about their projects and visions, the reciprocal relationship that exists between circus practice and research, and the importance of collaboration between researchers. es and artists.
The circus arts are involved in research of all kinds and play a different role each time. To simplify things a great deal, we could call them as follows.
There is theoretical research, which draws on scientific disciplines such as the humanities and social sciences, history, sociology, psychology and education. The aim is often to document practices, analyse trends and developments, and create an intellectual heritage. Discussing the issues facing society, of which the circus is a part or in which it has a role to play.
In this case, circus is the object of study. It is the circus that is studied through the prism of these disciplinary spectacles. This is the case for a great deal of research carried out by Louis-Patrick Leroux, co-editor of several books including Contemporary Circus, with Katie Lavers and Jon Burtt (Routlege, 2019) and Cirque Global: Québec's Expanding Circus Boundaries with Charles Batson (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016), Mathilde Perahia's doctoral thesis on the link between new aesthetics and social representations in Québec, Jacinthe Rivard's work on the employability of participants in Cirque Hors Piste's social circus programme, and the work of Cirque Hors Piste's social circus programme. D. thesis on the link between new aesthetics and social representations in Quebec, Jacinthe Rivard's work on the employability of participants in Cirque Hors Piste's social circus programme, and Zed Cézard's studies on the political commitment of clowns, to name but a few.
There is also research that uses the circus arts, through performance, to communicate and popularise scientific results. The circus is then a tool, a vector for sharing other knowledge. This is known as Art-Based Knowledge Transfer. Two recent examples can be found in the work of Naila Kuhlmann and Julie Théberge. Piece of mind by Naila, a neuroscience researcher, is an exemplary example of scientific communication, making the experience of people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease more understandable through a circus show created in collaboration between circus artists and people with the disease. Urgence Rurale 360 cocreated by Julie Théberge and les 7 doigts uses circus performance to report to the general public on the results of an analysis of medical desertification in the regions of Quebec.
Applied technical or technological research is being carried out to improve acrobatic apparatus or reduce the physical impact on acrobatic bodies. Critac is one of the major players in Quebec in these studies and developments.
Creative research explores physical concepts through the body or creates new concepts based on physical explorations. These research approaches encourage the creation of new aesthetic, theoretical, methodological, epistemological or technical knowledge. All these approaches must therefore involve creative or artistic activities (design, experimentation, technology, prototyping, etc.) as well as the problematisation of these same activities (critical and theoretical understanding of the research-creation, creative or artistic process, conceptualisation, etc.). In Quebec. Andréane Leclerc was a forerunner, completing a master's degree in research and creation at UQAM in 2013 (in theatre studies) on the dramaturgy of prowess, whose show Cherepaka toured for several years. More recently, however, we can also think of Marco Nery's thesis Vers le corps-acrobate : In search of the expressive means of the stage body at the heart of the creation process for Mythe-jeux de refus and the recent work of Geneviève Dupéré Ech2osystème, where circus performance is used to transfer knowledge about the complexity of the St Lawrence ecosystem Paloma Leyton, a doctoral student in the study and practice of the arts at UQAM, is currently working on the notion of precariousness and has developed an unstable trapeze bar in partnership with CRITAC, An extract from her creation will be shown at L' Autre Cirque in 2024 (read an article about her work on the relationship between the apparatus and the contemporary circus here).
You can do independent research, research in a university context, but also research as part of your artistic practice, as Agathe and Adrien are doing with their N.Ormes project, supported by CRITAC. To date, there is no university programme in circus arts in Quebec like there is in theatre and dance. The researcher is more in the field than you might think, working closely with practitioners. Sometimes the researcher is also an artist. Research and the circus are always in conversation, feeding off each other, evolving and growing.
You will find footage of some of the discussions and presentations that took place at the 2024 Research Forum:
The panel Circus and research : a reciprocal relationship with Geneviève Dupéré, Naila Kuhlmann, Sebastian Kann and Karine Lavoie, moderated by Mathilde Perahia.
The online knowledge café (in English) with researchers with Karen Fricker : Circus and Its Others : a transnational research project fostering dialogue between researchers and artists and Keely Whitelaw : Research-creation withing academia bridging the divide between concept and embodied expression.
The Knowledge Cafés, which offered face-to-face discussions, could unfortunately not be recorded.
Agathe and Adrien talked about research in the artistic process: gender bias at the heart of questions about new practices. Paloma Leyton proposed a discussion on research at university: the resonance between theory and practice around the body in suspension. Elia Seclet's table explored the research and design of new acrobatic apparatus. Marie Tissot led a reflection on the circus as an object of study: memories and living practices.
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