A PhD student and lecturer in Performing Arts, Cyrille Roussial studied several disciplines in social sciences and humanities before specializing in History at Paris Diderot University, and then in Dramaturgy at the École normale supérieure. Since 2019, he prepares at Lyon Lumière University a dissertation under the supervision of Julie Sermon; his thesis aims to bring out and analyse the recent change and development of juggling in France from historical, social and aesthetical perspectives.
In parallel to this activity he has practiced for a dozen years, he mainly works on circus. He often collaborates with professional organisations (SACD, ARTCENA, circusnext), universities (Sorbonne Nouvelle), schools (CNAC and ENACR), theaters (Cirque Jules Verne), and companies whose works refer to circus, or at least are involving in its production and distribution network: artists include, amongst others, Collectif Petit Travers, Alexander Vantournhout (Not Standing company), Cécile Mont-Reynaud (Lunatic company), Julian Vogel (Unlisted company), and more recently Carlo Cerato, Johann Le Guillerm (Cirque Ici) and Maroussia Diaz Verbèke (Le Troisième Cirque). Furthermore, Cyrille Roussial is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the revue Jonglages, a journal supported by the association La Maison des Jonglages.
His primary academic research has been dedicated on the one hand to the transcription of movement of objects and body through the study of several European jugglers and juggling companies. These works have been published notably in a research notebook by the National Center for Circus Arts of Châlons-en-Champagne (2018), a collective book entitled Anthropocene, an Indiscipline School [Anthropocène, à l’école de l’indiscipline] (2019), and the journals Agôn (2019), L’Ethnographie (2021), Circus: Arts, Life, and Sciences, Circus Sciences and Théâtre/Public (2023).
Cyrille Roussial also conducted several studies for the French Ministry of Culture, then for the Irish and European networks dedicated to circus and street arts (ISACS and Circostrada), and more recently for Zirkus ON, the support programme of the Federal Association of Contemporary Circus in Germany.
As a member of different research collectives, groups and networks he also contributes to several research projects (“The Life of Lines”, “Collective of researchers on circus/Circus and Gender”, “Arts and Environmental Humanities”, “Dramaturges in Situation”). In each of them, he deals with various types of practices (such as somatic, sporting and leisure activities), works, tasks and responsibilities in performing arts following approaches. The projects he undertook the past two years are focused on two main axes: the first explores some links between circus and ecological issues through the lens of ecocriticism and ecopoetics; the second one questions authorship in circus regarding the conditions and multiple ways of being author and dramaturg.
