Résumé :
The ring, the essence of the circus experience, was primordial as a device for grouping an audience around a spectacle of human activity. Australia’s Aboriginal people employed same device for ceremonies such as a corroboree, the earliest performance by Aborigines to be witnessed by Europeans. Ashton’s Aboriginal ‘apprentices’ probably cost him little or nothing to apart from board and keep and, in absence of protective legislation, were easily procured and retained. While colonial circus proprietors continued to ‘apprentice’ and train young Aboriginal children as performers, they had to simultaneously accommodate and reflect emerging middle-class values while realizing their own pretensions to respectability and legitimacy. The major Aboriginal identity in Australian circus in this era of ‘implied identity’ was unquestionably William ‘Billy’ Jones, ‘Little Nugget’ of Burton’s Circus in 1851. Broome perceives the boxing shows as ‘theatres of power’ where Aboriginal boxers, both victims and agents of prevailing racial stereotypes, could generate and amplify ambivalent attitudes towards Aborigines among white audiences.

Localisation : Bibliothèque

Cote : 791.301 T135r 2016