The contemporary circus as a radical art form that rejected animal acts and relied on human body exploration evolved in the 1970s. Since then, a new definition has been needed to describe this endeavour that is characterized by its mercurial, ever-changing qualities. The Routledge Circus Studies Reader tackles questions of the history and future of the circus while providing new meanings to this old art form. Contributors to the reader hail from varied academic disciplines including history, American studies, philosophy, English, theatre, business, linguistics, sociology and circus studies. Other contributors are artists, actors, directors, composers, tightrope walkers, clowns and a researcher from a circus family. These academics, artists and enthusiasts locate circus arts in relation to other arts and argue that the circus is an art form which explores the aesthetic potential of extreme physical action by bodies – animal and human – in defiance of cultural identity categories. These acts usually perform live in big to small enterprises, often with costuming, music, lighting and technological effects.
Chapters in the reader are grouped thematically into three sections. The first, ‘Perspectives’, provides theoretical approaches and key concepts for the interpretation and understanding of the circus form. The second part, ‘Precedents’, analyses historical origins from the perspective of recent analytical frameworks and encompasses political, geographical and conceptual diversity. In ‘Presents’, the third section, authors demonstrate the global reach of the contemporary animal-free circus and introduce current research studies.
Some of the gems in this volume explore gender, race, music and modernity. In ‘Respectable Female Nudity’, representing a piece from ‘Perspectives’, Janet M. Davis discusses gender in the circus and how circus women became a type of ‘new woman’ known for their athleticism and daring in the Victorian era. Also in ‘Perspectives’, Mark St Leon follows leading nineteenth-century performers in Australia from the 1850s to the 1950s. He shows how Indigenous people made meaningful contributions to professional circus activity from the earliest times, finding accommodation that could not be found elsewhere. Kim Baston's ‘Circus Music’ considers how what audiences hear at the circus might influence what they see and read in the circus spectacle. Baston shows how circus music is both reflective and constitutive of what is popular. In ‘Precedents’, Gillian Arrighi's ‘The Circus and Modernity: A Commitment to “the Newer” and “the Newest”’ explains how the nineteenth-century circus presented modernity in action by using an increasingly capital-intensive business model that always promoted technological innovations and presented these modes as front runners in the industry. Katie Lavers's ‘The Resilient Body in Social Circus’ in ‘Presents’ demonstrates how finding a definition for the circus is difficult as it is ever-mutating and transforming itself. Peta Tait demonstrates how performers heighten the public impression of danger while increasingly lowering the risks involved in their craft in her chapter, ‘Risk, Danger and Other Paradoxes in Circus and Circus Oz Parody’. The circus, then, according to Tait, offers an arena of resistance to physical and social constraint by presenting a controlled sphere of activity, and it relies on individual mastery and judgement of actual risk. Other pieces in this edition tackle subjects that range from politics to child labour, physical exceptionalism and animal performers.
This volume is thorough, with many expected and unexpected characters in the circus. It shines a needed light on aspects of gender, modernity and performance that are relatively newer areas of study. With only two chapters on race and ethnographic displays – both major obsessions in circuses and American, European and Australian imperialist ventures – this collection would have greatly benefited from a closer look at the contributions of people of colour who were sideshow musicians, managers, entrepreneurs, labourers and audience members. For example, the sections on music might have explored the contributions of the fabulously popular African-American Sideshow Troupes, and the section on clowns might have looked into the world of blackface minstrelsy, a tough but important topic in circus history.
This is a sweeping account of the circus and it will quickly become not just a staple on the bookshelves of circus enthusiasts, but a required text. This volume will find a broad readership among general audiences and academics in history, American studies, philosophy, English, theatre, sociology and circus studies, to name a few.
