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Voici la splendide publication de l’exposition « Place au cirque! » présentée du 13 octobre 2021 au 6 mars 2022 au Musée Pointe-à-Callière qui propose une fabuleuse aventure à travers l’histoire des arts du cirque d’hier et d’aujourd’hui au Québec. Cette passionnante incursion dévoile page après page un sensible hommage aux familles et compagnies de cirque qui ont bâti les esthétiques uniques des arts du cirque québécois qui a conquis les cœurs des spectateurs à travers le monde.

"¡Señores y señoras!, ¡Damas y caballeros! ¡El mayor espectáculo del mundo ha llegado a su ciudad! Estas palabras son el preámbulo de la aparición de algo mágico, que despierta nuestro más tierno recuerdo. Existen pocas disciplinas que susciten en el espectador sentimientos tan universales como los de la risa, la admiración, la angustia, el suspenso, la alegría, el asombro, el miedo, el romance, la luz o la oscuridad. Todo eso... es el circo. Al igual que la música, la pintura o el teatro, el espectáculo circense surge de una necesidad de expresión del ser humano que trasciende los límites, explora el riesgo, la superación personal y las emociones.

Au cœur de cet ouvrage se trouve la parole précieuse de costumières et d’un costumier de cirque d’aujourd’hui recueillie par la Chaire ICiMa à l’occasion d’entretiens destinés à collecter auprès de ceux qui les font le savoir-faire spécifique à la création des costumes que portent les artistes en scène. Ce savoir-faire est souvent développé par les costumières elles-mêmes au gré des expériences, à l’écoute des acrobates, clowns, jongleurs, etc., et participe pleinement aux dramaturgies élaborées au sein des créations.

Cette série de portraits de costumières, souvent indépendantes et dont certaines prennent en charge le costume de sa conception à sa confection, jusqu’à son entretien en tournée, vient s’ajouter un aperçu des ateliers de confection de costumes du Cirque du Soleil à Montréal et, par le biais de l’expérience de Pascal Jacob, de ceux de l’entreprise de spectacles du Belge Franco Dragone. Ces ateliers cultivent tout aussi méticuleusement, mais à plus grande échelle un savoir-faire spécifique à la création de costumes de cirque et réunissent pour ce faire une grande variété de métiers de l’artisanat et de la confection textile.

Les articles de Pascal Jacob, historien du cirque et costumier, et de Marion Guyez, secrétaire scientifique de la chaire ICiMa, docteure en arts du spectacle et artiste de cirque s’intéressent selon une approche historique et esthétique à la place que les costumes occupent dans les créations circassiennes, à la façon dont cette « écorce du mouvement » met en valeur les corps et leurs prouesses, aux différentes esthétiques de ces costumes, aux tendances qui se dessinent et à leurs évolutions jusque sur les scènes contemporaines où les costumes se défont parfois des textiles aux tons et à la matière chatoyants. Ils abordent ainsi la place importante que le choix des costumes occupe dans la composition des spectacles de cirque et dans l’élaboration de leurs dramaturgies, la fameuse « justesse » évoquée par plusieurs des costumières interrogées.

Une partie de l’ouvrage est enfin consacrée aux recherches menées par la chaire ICiMa et le Cnac sur les textiles et les costumes. Les costumières Gabrielle Marty et Sofia Bencherif font ainsi part de leur expérience de la création des costumes du spectacle Atelier 29, mis en scène par Mathurin Bolze, Compagnie MPTA, avec la 29e promotion du Cnac dans le cadre de leur formation à l’École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre de Lyon.
Cyril Thomas, responsable de la recherche au Cnac et co-titulaire de la chaire ICiMa et Victor Spazzola de l’Institut Français du Textile et de l’Habillement (IFTH) présentent notamment une synthèse des premiers résultats des recherches du chantier Textiles innovants. Ils détaillent les étapes qui ont permis d’aboutir à la réalisation de combinaisons de protection destinées à la pratique du tissu et de la corde d’une part et au mât chinois d’autre part.

Two hundred and fifty years after Philip Astley invented the circus it has never been more diverse and captivating, the global success of the spectacular Cirque du Soleil just one testament to its enduring and universal appeal. In Britain alone there are traditional family circuses for kids and arty shows for adults, circuses in tents and circuses in theatres, circuses with animals and circuses without, the Circus of Horrors for clubbers, the comedy-based Circus Hilarious and cabaret-style hybrids on the burlesque circuit - and this form of entertainment is popular around the world.

What all circuses have in common are the extraordinary skills, dedication and lifestyle of those involved - a unique strain of performers who blend the discipline of sports stars with the razzmatazz of showbiz; itinerant entertainers who have often had circus blood in their families for generations; world-class gymnasts who risk death twice daily, serve on the tea stand in between shows and help take down the big top afterwards.

Circus Mania is a journey into this unique world, each chapter an access-all-areas pass to a different circus, talking to the trapeze flyers, clowns, animal trainers and showmen about their lives, work and customs and offering insight into the development of this traditional entertainment from the earliest times.[editor summary]

Essays examine the innovative and influential circus scene as a creative, entrepreneurial, and cultural force that spans the globe.

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. [editor summary]

The Routledge Circus Studies Reader offers an absorbing critical introduction to this diverse and emerging field. It brings together the work of over 30 scholars in this discipline, including Janet Davis, Helen Stoddart and Peta Tait, to highlight and address the field’s key historical, critical and theoretical issues. It is organised into three accessible sections, Perspectives, Precedents and Presents, which approach historical aspects, current issues, and the future of circus performance.

The chapters, grouped together into 13 theme-based sub-sections, provide a clear entry point into the field and emphasise the diversity of approaches available to students and scholars of circus studies. Classic accounts of performance, including pieces by Philippe Petit and Friedrich Nietzsche, are included alongside more recent scholarship in the field.

Edited by two scholars whose work is strongly connected to the dynamic world of performance, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader is an essential teaching and study resource for the emerging discipline of circus studies. It also provides a stimulating introduction to the field for lovers of circus. [editor summary]

Depuis plus de trente ans, le Cirque du Soleil brille de tous ses feux. Derrière cette extraordinaire réussite se trouve un homme pas ordinaire et dont on connaît peu de choses: Gilles Ste-Croix, l'un des fondateurs du Cirque du Soleil aux côtés de Guy Laliberté. Pour la première fois, ce créateur qui a choisi l'ombre nous livre son parcours de vie dans MA PLACE AU SOLEIL. Il nous raconte son Abitibi natal, où son père était fermier, sa vie dans les communes des années 1970, sa marche en échasses de Baie-Saint-Paul à Québec, la naissance, les triomphes et les revers du Cirque du Soleil, son rôle de directeur de création sur des spectacles comme SALTIMBANCO, ALEGRIA ou LOVE, la création de CHEVAL THÉÂTRE, son amitié avec Paul McCartney, et l'école de cirque pour enfants qu'il a fondé au Mexique.Aujourd'hui à la retraite, Gilles Ste-Croix est un des seuls à pouvoir témoigner des trente ans d'histoire du Cirque du Soleil. Et d'une vie palpitante, marquée par l'audace et le partage, une vie qui nous inspire de tout faire pour que nos rêves se réalisent. [résumé de l'éditeur]

Traveling back to the circus’s early days, Linda Simon takes us to eighteenth-century hippodromes in Great Britain and intimate one-ring circuses in nineteenth-century Paris, where Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso became enchanted with aerialists and clowns. She introduces us to P. T. Barnum, James Bailey, and the enterprising Ringling Brothers and reveals how they created the golden age of American circuses. Moving forward to the whimsical Circus Oz in Australia and to New York City’s Big Apple Circus and the grand spectacle of Cirque du Soleil, she shows how the circus has transformed in recent years. At the center of the story are the people—trick riders and tightrope walkers, sword swallowers and animal trainers, contortionists and clowns—that created the sensational, raucous, and sometimes titillating world of the circus. [editor summary]

Criado pelo Cirque du Soleil e Jeunesse du Monde, o programa Cirque du Monde pratica a metodologia pedagógica do circo social, uma metodologia de ação usando as artes circenses como pedagogia alternativa junto aos jovens das classes populares. A fim de estimular e apoiar o desenvolvimento do circo social, o Cirque du Soleil criou um programa de formação em circo social destinado aos instrutores de circo e aos educadores de circo social que recorrem a esta metodologia.

Este guia faz parte de uma série de ferramentas pedagógicas que permitirão que as várias instituições interessadas pelo circo social se beneficiem da expertise desenvolvida pelo
Cirque du Soleil e por seus parceiros desde 1995. Sendo tanto uma síntese da metodologia pedagógica do circo social quanto um guia prático, este documento permite que os educadores de circo social compreendam os fundamentos e os princípios diretores específicos a essa metodologia de ação, além de apoiá-los na organização, no planejamento e na avaliação das oficinas de circo social.

This pioneering study is one of the major publications in the increasingly popular and largely undocumented area of circus studies. Through photographs and illustrations, Peta Tait presents an extraordinary survey of 140 years of trapeze acts and the socially changing ideas of muscular action in relation to our understanding of gender and sexuality. She questions how spectators see and enjoy aerial actions, and what cultural identities are presented by bodies in fast, physical aerial movement. [editor summary]

In a plodding academic study, Albrecht, who teaches English at Middlesex County College in New Jersey, tells the story of four modern circuses that evolved after the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus abandoned the big top in 1956. They are the Pickle Family Circus in San Francisco, the Big Apple Circus in New York City, Cirque du Soleil in Montreal and Circus Flora in St. Louis. Each offers one-ring productions in the European style, and each operates from a different home base. Albrecht maintains that, combining elements of the counterculture of the 1960s like street performances with those of legitimate theater and dance, these four represent a new brand of circus. Describing their histories, he summarizes the trials brought by economic crises, battles with animal-rights activists and the founding of circus schools, no longer a rarity in the U.S. While Albrecht distinguishes the "alternative circus" from its ancestors, the presence of trapeze artists, jugglers and clowns suggests that it's the same old material wrapped in new diction.

Enter a world unlike any other, where a dozen languages are spoken and scores of disciplines perfected--or invented; intimate and inscrutable, artistic and athletic, courageous and committed: the private world of the performers in the Cirque du Soleil. Of the hundreds of artists the Cirque employs, none is more fascinating than Olga Sidorova, who ran away from Siberia at age 14 to follow her dream to fly. When Schreiber met her in March, 2002, she inspired his own global odyssey, following the European tour of Saltimbanco., assisting her after knee surgery at the Cirque's training studio in Montreal, even helping a pair of contortionists apartment hunt in Las Vegas. "Dreams of the Solo Trapeze: Offstage with the Cirque du Soleil", is not one book but many: non-fiction novel, biography, cultural history, travel narrative, and love story. Its aim is to discover and pay tribute to these magnificent artists in a manner that reflects the Cirque's own spontaneity, originality and daring. [editor summary]

When people ask where my remarkable journey began, I tell them it was somewhere between the first and seventh doors. At least, that's where I found myself after I left behind the cacophony of the casino, with its blinking lights, rolling dice, and excite-ment around every corner. As fascinated as I was with the land of chance, I needed to give my senses a brief respite from the spinning wheels of fortune. I was searching for something, though for what, I didn't know. Something extraordinary. Something beyond the mundane world of marketing and money that had brought me to Las Vegas in the first place. Something beyond the grind that had become my life. Of course, if you have no idea what you're looking for, it's pretty hard to find it. I was about to escape to my hotel room for a moment of tranquillity, when I saw two men dressed in black work outfits walking away from the slot machines toward a qui-eter part of the casino. It was in an almost dreamlike state that I followed them. They disappeared through a plain white door-perhaps the only portal in the casino that didn't seem to announce what was on the other side. Intrigued, I pushed on it, and it opened... [editor summary]

The first decade of the twenty-first century was dubbed a new dawn for Latin America (Yates and Bakker 2013). Raphael Correa, like Evo Morales in Bolivia, was elected in the wake of anti-neoliberal sentiment that emerged from the structural adjustment monetary policies of the 1990s. Correa, like Morales, pledged a form of “communitarian socialism.” Escobar (2010), resonating with many other commentators, wrote that this was the “end of the long neoliberal night” and, as noted by Yates and Bakker, many scholars (Hammond 2003; Munck 2003; French and Fortes 2005) – echoing alter-globalization activists from the early days of this post-neoliberal trend...