Third day of ARTES study – Bordeaux Montaigne University, MSH Bordeaux – Carré-Colonnes National Stage, Collective of Researchers on the Circus

• April 4 and 5, 2023 , MSH Bordeaux, room 2

During this third day of study, after having addressed questions of legitimacy and the spaces of engaged circus, we wish to question the place of women in contemporary circus and the assignments that they undergo and/or that they manage to overturn . In the collective imagination, it is not uncommon for aerial disciplines to be considered rather feminine disciplines while strength disciplines are rather considered masculine. With his trapeze act disguised as a woman, Vander Clyde Broadway, alias Barbette, remained famous in the history of the circus for his iconoclastic posture. However, certain stereotypes still remain operative today in the world of the circus and its dominant representations.

Since the 2000s, numerous companies and collectives have proposed to question, or even rethink, the distributions and hierarchies of genders in contemporary circus in multiple forms: stage exploration, more global reflection on gender assignments and activist commitment. We can cite a few examples: the Cabas Company explores the place of women in the show Desiderata, performed by six male acrobats based on Korean seesaw; the PDF Project is “a collective of unique women […] who want to reflect on the antinomies of life” including “gender misunderstandings”; the Collective/Femmes de Crobatie offers “100% feminine creations”, while the Collective Les Tenaces – an extension of the Compagnie d’Elles – campaigns to give voice and offer visibility to circus women.

In addition to the study of these different practices, it seems interesting to us to also return to what the presentation of a female body in the social space and on a stage/track means, in the sense that Zed Cézard understands in relation to the clowns.

These different perspectives will allow us to rethink the history of the circus and its practices, which have until now been constructed through an essentially masculine prism.

Coordination: Marie Duret-Pujol (MCF Théâtral Studies, Bordeaux Montaigne University) and Éléonore Martin (MCF Performing Arts, Bordeaux Montaigne University).

Download the program (pdf)