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French Touch: It was in a faculty of sports sciences that you began your research work. As a counterpoint to the gymnast's balance, does the circus seduce us precisely for its art of imbalance?

Magali Sizorn: In press articles from the 50s, it is not uncommon to find critics taking offense at the requirement for nets in high-altitude acts. With the underlying idea that if you can't die, there's no point in doing the circus. The circus was therefore structured from the 18th century onwards on a aesthetics of the spectacular, and a spectacular that summons risk-taking with the possibility of falling. Even if it is not only that, it is part of the foundation of the aesthetics of the circus. However, in contemporary circus, risk, when it is summoned, is sometimes simply cited or metaphorized.

FT: How can we define “contemporary” or “new” circus when the hesitation over the adjective seems to characterize the multiplicity of the discipline?

MS: In the shows claiming to be contemporary circus, we find an extremely wide range of aesthetics, institutional or even political positions. In broad historical terms, the 70s and 80s marked the appearance of new circus forms that would first be recognized under the term of new circus. At the same time, in the 80s, the claim for an "other" circus emerged: companies such as Archaos, Puits aux images, Cirque Bonjour, and a little later Cirque Plume would structure themselves... It was only later that the expression "contemporary circus" appeared. The show often cited as a starting point is "Le cri du caméléon" by Joseph Nadj, in 1995. The show, which marked the end of the school of the National Center for Circus Arts (inaugurated 10 years earlier) was presented at La Villette and would arouse the interest of the public and critics. At that time, the circus was already positioned in the field of contemporary arts, like dance or guy. The Cnac was then directed by the charismatic Bernard Turin, an amateur sculptor and trapeze artist. A trained visual artist, the latter breathed new life into the circus by soliciting renowned artists from outside the circus, such as theater directors or choreographers like Joseph Nadj, for the school. With "Le cri du caméléon", we are no longer at all in the presentation of the feat, but in the idea that a circus piece bears a creative imprint and can be a work of art.

FT: There is also a strong attachment to the very name of circus. How can we define the spirit of the circus?

MS: A number of artists, such as the illusionist Yann Frisch, trained in juggling and new magic, have branched out into other disciplines, while remaining attached to the circus. Their artistic proposals could very well be known under the banner of theater or, more generally, of performing Arts. In the circus, there is a very strong relationship to "doing", to making, to a way of working one's own material. The artist Elodie Guézou put together a piece entitled "Cadavre exquis" (2020) for which she asked eleven directors to stage it in short sequences. Behind this performance show, there was the idea of ​​trying to characterize the specificity of the circus artist performer. Elodie Guézou is a contortionist. This piece highlighted the attachment to a technical singularity as well as to the creative potential of performers coming from the circus. Even if, in vocational training schools, students are encouraged to deconstruct, divert, and surpass their technique, the relationship to know-how is still very present. The pleasure of prowess is also a characteristic element of the circus. For other artists, the circus refers to a certain political utopia, as was observed among the pioneers of the "new circus" of the 70s, who called on the circus as a "popular art". Finally, a certain number of pieces today are reconnecting with traditional forms, either through quotes or in forms of reconstruction. For example, the formidable show by Anna Tauber (Association du vide company), "Suzanne, a history (of the circus)" is a historical piece. Anna Tauber staged, in a form of "theatre-lecture", her meeting with the acrobat Suzanne Marcaillou, aged over 90, and the investigation she conducted into the aerial act that this woman performed without a tether with her husband for almost 20 years. Her company works a lot on the question of circus archives, which until now have been little exploited by contemporary artists. There is here a desire to reconnect or not to break with what would make circus, as we have been able to observe in other artists in the obsession with the circle. Is the circus limited to the circle? In the history of the circus is not at all true, but in any case, this question remains posed in the desire to characterize the circus. Finally, the question of risk-taking has been widely reinvested in recent years, in a return to the possibility of falling, with artists such as the rope acrobat Maroussia Diaz Verbèke, with Circus Remix, who in her Third Circus, mixes sounds, voices, physical prowess, the history of the circus and its actualization.

Maroussia Diaz Verbèke (Credit Jérome Bonnet)

FT: In contemporary circus are there movements, trends, formats?

MS: Large multidisciplinary forms like those offered by the Quebec Cirque du Soleil have become rare. On the other hand, there are many monodisciplinary collectives. This was already the case with Arts Sauts in the 90s. Today this movement extends to aerial hoops, jugglers, contortionists… The sustainability of large formats is largely due to the question of the sector's economy. In France, companies like XY, a specialist in acrobatic lifts, are becoming relatively rare. There are still a few companies attached to the question of animality, a subject that has run through the entire history of the circus since the circus was born from equestrian theater. This was also part of the dividing lines between traditional circus and contemporary circus. But some companies and artists, like Baro d'Evel, are today revisiting the question of the human-non-human relationship. The biographical and autobiographical dimension is also an important trend in contemporary circus: the circus of the real or the circus of the intimate, with autofictional proposals and many solos. This is the case of the juggler Martin Palisse, of Katell Le Brenn and Elodie Guézou, contortionists, who are also in the lineage of Angela Laurier, who passed away last year. Her introspective work explored through the body the faults and her personal history. Finally, there is a whole dynamic of creation around objects and matter. For example, the acrobatic show "Huellas" with Matias Pilet and Fernando Gonzalez Bahamondez takes place on a clay floor, while Inbal Ben Haim moves on paper apparatus.

Huellas (credit Franck Jalouneix)

FT: Is there a French school of contemporary circus? A "made in France"?

MS: This is absolutely true from the 80s and 90s. The first circus schools were nevertheless not French, contrary to what people think. There were already state schools in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the renewal of aesthetics was driven by schools that were structured in France in the 80s and 90s, notably with the creation of the Cnac. In other countries, schools were also created in those years, in Quebec, in Australia... So it is not just a Franco-French dynamic, on the other hand, there was strong public support in France with significant possibilities for dissemination. From there, contemporary circus, as it was structured in France, was able to set a school. Thus, in South America we speak of contemporary circus "à la française", in certain Asian countries too. But this observation must be qualified because the circus market has become globalized. Recruitment for French schools is international, just like that of the grandes écoles of other countries. Some major geographical trends are still emerging… For example, students trained in Montreal have a more technical approach than in France. Students who want to go for prowess will rather go to train in Quebec. Those who prefer the experimental in writing will come to France or Stockholm.

FT: To discover the new generations of circus performers, where should you go?

MS: The historic Circa festival takes place every year in the fall in Auch in the Gers. It is THE meeting place for the profession with a program of professional shows and presentations from circus schools. Other festivals have developed, such as the International Circus Arts Biennial (Biac) until February in Marseille and the Spring festival in Normandy, the international festival of new forms of circus.

FT: Let us come to the question of representations: how can the circus help us to question the world?

MS: Already in the 70s, feminist circuses appeared that would change the way of looking at women in circus shows and of staging them in shows. But the history of the circus is full of strong and powerful women! There has always been in the circus the desire to show spectators a multiplicity of possibilities of the feminine as well as the masculine, to explore the margins.
There are a number of male artists who invest in the field of fragility, of fault. Martin Pallis and Boris Gibé are good examples. In the invitation to cross different imaginaries on the question of animality, we often cite one of the Cirque Plume shows entitled "No animo Mas Anima" (1993) which invited us to reflect on the question of the domination of Man. One of the characteristics of the contemporary circus is that it looks at itself a lot and at its history a lot. And by looking at its history, it invites us to reflect on our own history. The history of the circus is still the history of a white Western entertainment that has "exoticized" the rest of the world.

FT: Who are the circus performers we should know about today and where do they take us?

MS: They cover a wide range of possibilities. I am thinking of Yaëlle Antoine, a teacher and director who taught at the Esacto'Lido circus school in Toulouse. A self-proclaimed feminist, she explores power relations from teaching practices to aesthetics and forms of work organization. One issue that mobilizes many circus artists today is that of motherhood. The collective Les Tenaces also speaks out for women. The question of aesthetics was already being asserted and continues to be: women are not just the foils of men.

FT: Does the circus go further than traditional theatre and how does it contribute to the transformation of live performance?

MS: This is the case in the claim of a relationship to authenticity that also comes back in the artists' discourse on the exhibition of their body. The weak dissociation between the person and the character is frequently evoked, but above all the possibility of falling is not just a possibility... Bodily fragilities echo psychological fragilities. They can be pushed to their paroxysm. This is undoubtedly what makes the theatre sometimes interested in circus bodies for this more direct, palpable, sensitive relationship. For example, the director David Bobée, who now directs the Théâtre du Nord (CDN) in Lille, has worked a lot with circus artists because he was interested in these questions, in what is at stake and transmitted in the energy deployed to carry, hold, in balance and imbalance.