Contemporary Circus
Contemporary circus (or ''cirque contemporain'' in French-speaking countries) is a contested term in circus studies. In this article, it is used in contrast to the term 'traditional circus', combining with the genre elsewhere disambiguated as new circus or ''nouveau cirque''. Many circus scholars prefer to separate these styles, as elaborated in circus. Contemporary circus, by this definition, is a genre of performing arts developed in the late 20th century in which a story, theme, mood or question is conveyed through traditional circus skills. Traditional circus skills are blended with more choreographic, character-driven or mechanical approaches. Animals are rarely used, akin to variety shows. Contemporary circus —encompassing the New Circus movement—originated in the late 1960s, and has spurred the creation of unique schools to teach the format, as well as books for the contemporary circus performer, assisting them with their careers. Contemporary circus The new ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien language, Francien) largely supplanted. It was also substratum (linguistics), influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul and by the Germanic languages, Germanic Frankish language of the post-Roman Franks, Frankish invaders. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, it was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole, were established. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Fra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cirque Plume
Cirque Plume is a contemporary circus company founded in 1984 by Bernard Kudlak in the Franche-Comté region of France. French newspaper ''Le Parisien'' has described Cirque Plume as "the oldest of the New Circuses... It is one of the rare troupes who seem to be able to reconcile both the children, numerous in the audience... and adults, uncomfortable with the traditional circus, but who are rather in search of a certain atmosphere." According to ''Le Figaro'', "The word circus here is what you see and what you get. The techniques of juggling, acrobatics or flying trapeze are totally respected. Their chief originality is the way in which they are all brought into the gigantic mixer." In 2018, Cirque Plume performed one last time in Paris, showing ''La dernière saison'' at the Grande Halle de La Villette from September 26 to December 30, marking its final Paris performances. The troupe planned to retire in late 2020 after farewell shows in its hometown of Besançon. On Septem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Acting
Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode. Acting involves a broad range of skills, including a well-developed imagination, emotional facility, physical expressivity, vocal projection, clarity of speech, and the ability to interpret drama. Acting also demands an ability to employ dialects, accents, improvisation, observation and emulation, mime, and stage combat. Many actors train at length in specialist programs or colleges to develop these skills. The vast majority of professional actors have gone through extensive training. Actors and actresses will often have many instructors and teachers for a full range of training involving singing, scene-work, audition techniques, and acting for camera. Most early sources in the West that examine the art of acting (, ''hypokrisis'') discuss it as part of rhetoric. Hist ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Juggling
Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object or many objects at the same time, most often using one or two hands but other body parts as well, like feet or head. Jugglers often refer to the objects they juggle as ''props''. The most common props are balls, clubs, or rings. Some jugglers use more dramatic objects such as knives, fire torches or chainsaws. The term ''juggling'' can also commonly refer to other prop-based manipulation skills, such as diabolo, plate spinning, devil sticks, poi, cigar boxes, contact juggling, hooping, yo-yo, hat manipulation and kick-ups. Etymology The words ''juggling'' and ''juggler'' derive from the Middle English ''jogelen'' ("to entertain by performing tricks"), which in turn is from the Old French '' jangler''. There is also the wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Acrobatics
Acrobatics () is the performance of human feats of balance (ability), balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sports, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro dance, circus, gymnastics, and freerunning and to a lesser extent in other athletic activities including ballet, slacklining and Diving (sport), diving. Although acrobatics is most commonly associated with human body performance, the term is used to describe other types of performance, such as aerobatics. History Acrobatic traditions are found in many cultures, and there is evidence that the earliest such traditions occurred thousands of years ago. For example, Minoan civilization, Minoan art from contains depictions of bull-leaping, acrobatic feats on the backs of bulls. Ancient Greeks practiced acrobatics, and the noble court displays of the European Middle Ages would often include acrobatic performances that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Circus Skills
Circus skills are a group of disciplines that have been performed as entertainment in circus, carnival, sideshow, busking, variety, vaudeville, or music hall shows. Most circus skills are still being performed today. Many are also practiced by non-performers as a hobby. Circus schools and instructors use various systems of categorization to group circus skills by type. Systems that have attempted to formally organize circus skills into pragmatic teaching groupings include the Gurevich system"The Classification of Circus Techniques" by Hovey Burgess. ''The Drama Review'': TDR, Vol. 14344425Aleeyah18, No. 1, Popular Entertainments (Mar., 1974), pp. 65-70. doi:10.2307/1144863. (the basis of the Russian Circus School's curriculum) and the Hovey Burgess system. Circus skills * Acrobalance * Acrobatics * Acro dance * Adagio * Aerial hammock * Aerial hoop * Aerial pole * Aerial silk * Aerial straps * Artistic cycling * Balancing * Banquine * Baton twirling * Buffoonery * Bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy. Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financiallyhe was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon intr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Victoria Chaplin
Victoria Agnes Chaplin-Thierrée (born May 19, 1951) is a British-American circus performer. She is a daughter of film actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin from his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, and a granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Chaplin was born at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, but grew up in Switzerland. As a teenager, she appeared as an extra in her father's last film, '' A Countess from Hong Kong'' (1966). Her father also wanted her to star in the main role of a winged girl found from the Amazonian rainforest in his next planned film, ''The Freak'', in 1969. However, the project was never filmed because of his declining health and because Victoria eloped with the French actor Jean-Baptiste Thierrée.Interview with James Thiérrée, The New Yorker, 7 January ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rob Mermin
Rob Mermin is the founder of the award-winning international touring youth circus Circus Smirkus. Biography Rob Mermin grew up in a lively Jewish family, and in 1969 Mermin ran off to join the circus. He clowned with various European circuses including England's Circus Hoffman, Sweden's Cirkus Scott, Denmark's Circus Benneweis in the Circus Building by the Tivoli, the Hungarian Magyar State Cirkusz, and circus palaces throughout the former Soviet Union. His formal training includes mime with masters Marcel Marceau and Etienne Decroux, and a degree in Drama and Literature from Lake Forest College in 1971. He is former Dean of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and President of Blackfriar’s Summer Theater. In 1987 Mermin founded Circus Smirkus in Greensboro, Vermont. Awards Mermin's awards include Copenhagen's ''Gold Clown''; Vermont's ''Bessie'' Award; ''Best Director Prize'' at the International Circus Festival on Russia's Black Sea; the Lund Family Center's "I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Circus Smirkus
Circus Smirkus is a non-profit international youth circus founded in 1987 by Rob Mermin. It is based in Greensboro, Vermont. Smirkus' performers and coaches have come from Canada, China, Colombia, United Kingdom, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Moldova, Mongolia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, Zambia, ten Native American nations and 20 US states. At the International Children's Festival at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in September 2000, Circus Smirkus was introduced as "the United Nations of the youth circus world." Summer camp Circus Smirkus has a summer camp that trains children in areas such as aerials, clowning/performance, acrobatics and juggling. Participants may also choose to train in other skills such as human pyramids, unicycling and stilt walking. Smirkus Camp opened its Summer 2015 season at new, permanent facilities—a 135-year-old farmhouse, two dorm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The 7 Fingers
The 7 Fingers is an artist collective based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The group is also known by its French name "Les 7 doigts de la main", which is sometimes shortened to "Les 7 Doigts". History The 7 Fingers is a collective founded in 2002 by seven circus artists: Isabelle Chassé, Shana Carroll, Patrick Léonard, Faon Shane, Gypsy Snider, Sébastien Soldevila, and Samuel Tétreault. Since 2003, the collective has been led by Nassib El-Husseini, a political scientist, author, and former advisor to numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations both in Canada and abroad. On July 14, 2016, the collective created The 7 Fingers Foundation. Until the end of 2017, the collective's headquarter was on 225 Roy East st. in Montreal. After 18 months of renovation work, The 7 Fingers moved to their new centre of creation and production, on 2111 Saint Laurent Boulevard, Saint-Laurent boulevard, in the quartier des spectacles. Original and Touring shows ''Passagers'' (201 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Teatro ZinZanni
Teatro ZinZanni is a circus dinner theater that began in the neighborhood of Lower Queen Anne in Seattle, Washington. It has since expanded its operations to San Francisco and Chicago. History Teatro ZinZanni was created by Norman Langill, and was once described as "the Moulin Rouge meets Cirque du Soleil." The show is a blend of European circus and cabaret and American vaudeville performed in a Belgian '' spiegeltent'' (mirror tent). Until mid-2011 the show was produced by the Seattle-based non-profit events company, One Reel. Teatro Zinzanni is now an independent company. Teatro ZinZanni began in Seattle in October 1998 for an eight-week run and ended up playing to sold-out houses until it closed on December 31, 1999. Members of the original cast included tap dancer Wayne Doba, also known for being San Francisco Giants mascot the Crazy Crab, Kevin Kent, and Ann Wilson of the rock group Heart. It then moved its operation to San Francisco, opening there in March 2000 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |