Tag: Nouveau Cirque
Here’s a short, award-winning partner acrobatic piece in the style of nouveau cirque, performed by Yannick Thomas and Grégory Arsenal, both products of French and Québecois circus schools. This isn’t physical comedy, but what works for me — besides the high level of precise skill — is the theatrical idea of the acrobatics happening to the characters rather than just being presentational. This isn’t consistently the case throughout, but when it works it is stunning.
I don’t know much about Compagnie Ieto, another product of the French circus school system. I’ve never seen them perform, but based on this video — thank you to Jeff Seal for the link — I like, I like. Strictly speaking this is more nouveau cirque than physical comedy, but there’s a strong kinship in terms of partner acrobatic work, engagement with the material world, and sheer creativity.
I’ve always been a big circus fan, but I have to admit that somewhere along the way I began to tire of the same old acts done the same old way. Tradition is fine and to be seriously respected, but watching performers — be it a hand balancer, a solo trapeze artist, or a clown — do what everyone else is doing, time after time, proved downright dispiriting. Did “classical circus” have to be devoid of creativity? And if a true believer like me often found himself bored at ringside, I suspect many a secular spectator was left with the feeling that “if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”
I blazed through London for three jet-lagged days on my way to Paris, and managed to catch part of a circus festival (ongoing through May 16th) at the Roundhouse Theatre in fashionable Camden Town.
This post was supposed to be almost as easy as my last one. Surely I could knock it off in an hour or two. I’d caught Birdhouse Factory a while back in Newark, found it more than a little interesting, figured I’d write a paragraph or two of observations, throw in some pics and a promo video and be done with it.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin