Description:

SYMPOSIUM MAY 13 & 14, 2020
The performance practice of the circus in the early 20th century was formative for the avant-gardes. This symposium examines how the aesthetics of circus arts affected and competed with the theatre of the Russian and Western avant-gardes, and to what extent the circus served as an inspiration for multimedia avant-garde productions. In what ways were the stage and body concepts perpetuated in the works of the avant-garde artists? What were the references and intersections between the performance practices of the circus and the theatre of the avant-gardes? Why have the works of the circus artists around 1900 as well as the connection between circus and the Western avant-gardes attracted only very little and unsystematic interest within the according fields of research? In which contexts and media do we find traces of these performance practices today and what is the situation regarding the availability of relevant historical sources?