✍ Scribed by Louis Patrick Leroux; Charles R. Batson; (eds.)
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
With a billion-dollar industry centred in Montreal, the province of Quebec has established itself as a major hub for contemporary circus. Cirque du Soleil has a global presence, and troupes such as Cirque Éloize and 7 doigts de la main are state-of-the-art innovators. The National Circus School of Montreal - the only state-funded elite training facility in North America - is an influential leader in artistry and technique. Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil’s Cirque du Monde supports arts for social change on many continents and is renowned for its social-circus training and research.
Cirque Global is the first book-length study of this new variety of circus and its international impact. The contributors offer critical perspectives on this rapidly developing art form and its aesthetics, ethics, business practices, pedagogical implications, and discursive significations. Essays explore creative, entrepreneurial, and cultural forces that are shaping Quebec’s dynamic nouveau cirque. Lavishly illustrated with photographs from circus performances, the volume showcases Quebec circus’s hybrid forms, which have merged the ethos and aesthetics of European circuses with American commercial and industrial creativity.
Cirque Global is the definitive study of the phenomenon of Quebec circus and is an important model for future research on contemporary circus.
Illustrations and Tables ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Prologue
Reading Quebec’s Expanding Circus Boundaries xvii
Charles R. Batson
Introduction
Reinventing Tradition, Building a Field: Quebec Circus
and Its Scholarship 3
Louis Patrick Leroux
I Quebec on Planet Circus
1 The Québécois Circus in the Concert of Nations:
Exchange and Transversality 25
Pascal Jacob Translated by Tiffany Templeton
2 A Tale of Origins: Deconstructing North American “Cirque”
Where Québécois and American Circus Cultures Meet 36
Louis Patrick Leroux
3 Are Quebec Circuses of Foreign Origin? 55
Julie Boudreault Translated by Tania Grant
II Cirque Brands
4 Performance Services: The Promises of Cirque du Soleil 71
Erin Hurley
5 The Last Man in Quebec: Between Circus and Religion 79
Sylvain Lavoie Translated by Caitlin Stall-Paquet
6 Circus and Gentrification 85
Susan Bennett
III Dramaturgy and Aesthetics
7 Les 7 doigts de la main and Their Cirque: Origins,
Resistances, Intimacies 99
Charles R. Batson
8 The Multiple Bodies of Cirque du Soleil 122
Erin Hurley
9 “Somewhere between Science and Legend”: Images of
Indigeneity in Robert Lepage and Cirque du Soleil’s Totem 140
Karen Fricker
IV Circus Problematized
10 Creativity’s Tug-of-War between Artists and Managers:
A Mediator’s Perspective on the Case of Cirque du Soleil’s
“Complexe Cirque” 161
Isabelle Mahy
11 A Las Vegas of the North? The Architectural Brutalism
of Cirque du Soleil 181
Simon Harel Translated by MichelleWong
12 The Chinese Connection: The Transnational Origins
of Québécois Circus Arts 202
Tracy Y. Zhang
V Affecting Change
13 Creativity and Place in the Evolution of a Cultural Industry:
The Case of Cirque du Soleil 223
Deborah Leslie and Norma M. Rantisi
14 Introducing Decision Training into an Elite Circus
Arts Training Program 240
Sylvain Lafortune, Jon Burtt, and Patrice Aubertin
15 Singular Bodies, Collective Dreams: Socially Engaged Circus
Arts and the “Quebec Spring” 266
Jennifer Beth Spiegel
Epilogue: Circus Reinvested 284
Louis Patrick Leroux
Glossary of Circus Terms 294
Anna-Karyna Barlati Translated by Susan Kelly
Notes 309
References 327
Contributors 347
Index 353
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<p>Essays examine the innovative and influential circus scene as a creative, entrepreneurial, and cultural force that spans the globe.</p>