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Thinking Through CircusThinking Through Circus gathers ten dialogues with and between circus artists. Each entry bears witness to how a specific circus practice is (also) a practice of critical thinking, revealing how feminism, queerness, dramaturgy, love, disobedience, posthumanism and the aesthetico-political imaginary are rethought in and through contemporary circus practice.
With this book, The Circus Dialogues wants to tend to the embodied relationships between contemporary circus and today’s world, defending circus as a field in which experimental thinking is already happening and can continue to happen. Doing so, we hope to contribute to a more sustainable circus, expanding both accountability and agency within our field.
The Circus Dialogues is a two-year artistic research project at KASK School of Arts Ghent (BE) led by Bauke Lievens (BE), Quintijn Ketels (BE), Sebastian Kann (US/DE) and accompanied by Vincent Focquet (BE). Our work delves into and makes space for encounters between theory and artistic circus practice. The Circus Dialogues aims to shine a light on the circus as a field in which experimental thinking is already happening, and we work to ensure the ongoingness of such thinking in an artistic and institutional ecology that’s long-term sustainable. We do this first and foremost through our diverse artistic practices. In parallel, we organize reading groups and collaborative gatherings for circus artists. We have also published several Open Letters to the Circus. Our activities are conceived with the intention of helping to imagine the circus field as both important and political. Most importantly, we defend circus as an open and undefinable form. [editor summary]
Narcisse et ses avatarsEn vingt-six entrées vives et accessibles, Yves Michaud pose son regard de philosophe sur les mutations à l’œuvre dans notre société. YouTube, Narcisse, la Com’, le Design, l’Hédonisme, le Sexe ou encore le People, s’entrecroisent et se répondent dans ce petit précis philosophique ultramoderne. C’est à contrecourant des discours alarmistes que le lecteur retrouvera son quotidien, ses obsessions et névroses. Il entrera dans cet abécédaire comme on tend devant soi un miroir, ou un smartphone, et se verra délivrer des clés à la compréhension du monde d’aujourd’hui et de demain. [résumé de l'éditeur]
S'appuyer, s'aligner : à la recherche de l'équilibre : sensations, contructions et inventions dans les disciplines du main à main, des équilibres sur les mains et du fil : manuel pédagogique« C’est à partir de constats de terrain et de problématiques pédagogiques concrètes que sont proposés plusieurs textes pour approfondir, expliciter ou questionner les notions liées à l’équilibre, tout en donnant la parole à celles et ceux qui ont animé ou participé à la formation. Si cet ouvrage n'a pas vocation à décrire les exercices mis en jeu aux cours de ces temps de pratique, leur observation a permis de tirer des fils et de proposer différents outils transférables aux pratiques pédagogiques de chacun. Les deux grandes parties du manuel sont : la construction de l'équilibre et le développement d'une relation à l'équilibre. Plus que des méthodes qui imposeraient des règles ou des protocoles, ces approches sensibles permettent, un moment donné, de formaliser les pratiques et de les transmettre. Pour autant, elles vont bien au-delà de la parole et de l’écrit et ne trouvent leur pleine réalisation que dans la mise en jeu du corps. »
Le manuel permet de formaliser les pratiques des professionnels d’aujourd’hui et de les transmettre. Les propositions sont transférables d’un agrès à l’autre et d’une pratique à l’autre et permettent d’amorcer une réflexion transversale sur les compétences en équilibre. [résumé de l'éditeur]
Continuing training for circus arts teachers : planning, facilitating and evaluating"This publication was born out of the FEDEC's desire to equip school directors and pedagogical directors with a tool enabling them to provide their teachers an offer of training and professional development in line with the evolutions of the profession of circus arts teacher in a professional circus school and adaptable to its local, national or international context.
The first part of this guide recalls the context and the reasons for its creation: it gives keys of understanding the stakes related to this guide and specify who the main recipients of this tool are. The second part defines the educational foundations of the INTENTS training sessions, which are real experiments of training environments. They are designed to serve as reference for the training courses to come. Finally, the third part introduces the proposals regarding the planning, the facilitating and evaluation of training schemes. These proposals deal with the two main categories of training set up ("intra" formations, within schools, on the one hand, and "inter" formations, bringing together teachers from different schools, on a regional, national or international level, on the other hand)." [editor summary]
Circus life : performing and laboring under America's big top shows, 1830-1920The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible.
The circus has long been a subject of fascination for many, as evidenced by the millions of Americans that have attended circus performances over many decades since 1870, when the circus established itself as a truly unique entertainment enterprise. Yet the few analyses of the circus that do exist have only examined the circus as its own closed microcosm—the “circus family.” Circus Life, on the other hand, places circus employees in the larger context of the history of US workers and corporate America. Focusing on the circus as a business-entertainment venture, Childress pushes the scholarship on circuses to new depths, examining the performers, managers, and laborers’ lives and how the circus evolved as it grew in popularity over time. Beginning with circuses in the antebellum era, Childress examines changes in circuses as gender balances shifted, industrialization influenced the nature of shows, and customers and crowds became increasingly more middle-class.
As a study in sport and social history, Childress’s account demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the circus drew specific types of workers and performers, and how the circus was internally in constant upheaval due to the changing profile of its patrons and a changing economy. [editor summary]
Dispositifs sonores : corps, scènes, atmosphèresCet ouvrage résulte d’un constat aussi simple que déconcertant : alors que le son joue au théâtre un rôle généralement aussi important que le visuel, il est à peu près absent des travaux
critiques, historiques et théoriques. Et pourtant, cet univers sonore en est un très complexe et étonnant, et vaut la peine qu’on s’y attarde.
L’émergence de ce qu’il est aujourd’hui convenu d’appeler les études sonores en théâtre fait de l’auralité de la représentation – ce qu’on y entend et comment on l’entend – une question majeure au sein de la recherche universitaire qui se consacre aux arts vivants. Ce « tournant sonore » touche autant la conception du spectacle que sa représentation, sa réception que son archivage
L’ouvrage repose sur deux dimensions : d’abord, celle de la réflexion théorique, plus générale ; puis, celle de l’expérimentation, qui ancre progressivement la pensée dans une réalité sonore particulière. Les quatorze textes de théoriciens et d’artistes, en passant de l’abstraction des concepts au concret de leur réalisation, témoignent de la fluidité et de la diversité qui concernent autant les agencements dynamiques et mouvants appelés ici « dispositifs » que les réalités sonores qu’ils engendrent. [résumé de l'éditeur]
Craft A secret history of craft told through lost and overlooked texts that illuminate our understanding of current art practice.
“Craft” is a contested concept in art history and a vital category through which to understand contemporary art. Through craft, materials, techniques, and tools are investigated and their histories explored in order to reflect on the politics of labor and on the extraordinary complexity of the made world around us. This anthology offers an ethnography of craft, surveying its shape-shifting identities in the context of progressive art and design through writings by artists and makers as well as poetry, fiction, anthropology, and sociology. It maps a secret history of craft through lost and overlooked texts that consider pedagogy, design, folk art, the factory, and new media in ways that illuminate our understanding of current art practice.
Recently, the idea of craft has been employed strategically: to confront issues of gender or global development, to make a stand against artistic academicism, or to engage with making processes—some distinctly archaic—employed to suggest the abject and the everyday. Craft activism, or craftivism, suggests a new political purpose for the handmade. Deep anxieties drive today's technophilia, and artists, designers, and makers turn such anxieties into a variety of dynamic engagements. The contributors' reflections on new technologies and materials, lost and found worlds of handwork, and the politics of work all throw light on craft as process, product, and ideology. Craft will serve as a vital resource for understanding technologies, materials, techniques, and tools through the lens of craft in contemporary art. [editor summary]
I am a body of landf poetry is a place to question, I Am a Body of Land by Shannon Webb-Campbell is an attempt to explore a relationship to poetic responsibility and accountability, and frame poetry as a form of re-visioning. Here Webb-Campbell revisits the text of her earlier work Who Took My Sister? to examine her self, her place and her own poetic strategies. These poems are efforts to decolonize, unlearn, and undoo harm. Reconsidering individual poems and letters, Webb-Campbell's confessional writing circles back, and challenges what it means to ask questions of her own settler-Indigenous identity, belonging, and attempts to cry out for community, and call in with love. [editor summary]
Making spaces safer : a guide to giving harassment the boot wherever you work, play, and gatherShawna Potter, singer for the band War On Women, has tackled sexism and harassment in lyrics and on stage for years. Taking the battle to music venues themselves, she has trained night clubs and community spaces in how to create safer environments for marginalized people. Now she’s turned decades of experience into a clear and concise guide for public spaces of all sorts, from art galleries to bagel shops to concert halls, that want to shut down harassers wherever they show up. The steps she outlines are realistic, practical, and actionable. With the addition of personal stories, case studies, sample policies, and no-nonsense advice like “How to Flirt without Being a Creep,” she shows why safer spaces are important, while making it easier to achieve them. Eschewing theory, she assumes the reader is already an ethical creature and jumps right in with candor, punk passion, and righteous anger to get the job done! [editor summary]
Applied anatomy of aerial arts : an illustrated guide to strength, flexibility, training, and injury preventionSpecifically designed for aerialists—including those who do trapeze, silks, and other aerial arts— Applied Anatomy of Aerial Arts is an invaluable resource for those who want to optimize their performance and train safely.
Using a biomechanical and movement-based approach, Emily Scherb, a physical therapist who specializes in the care, treatment, and education of circus performers—explains the anatomical rationale for progressions of learning and demonstrates simple movements to achieve the coordination, muscular control, strength, and fitness to hang with correct form, how to progress from hanging into a pull up, an inversion, and beyond with a strong center, precise muscle sequencing, and ease of movement.
Aerialists will learn how bones, joints, muscles, and soft tissues allow for specific movements and gain an appreciation for concepts of proximal stability.
This full-color illustrated guide lays a solid foundation for beginners and advanced students with a wealth of insights into their own performance as well as refreshers on fundamentals in warm ups and conditioning. It explains how to structure a training session, how to care for injuries, and best practices for basic self first aid. [editor summary]
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