Anna-Sophie Jürgens is an Assistant Professor in Popular Entertainment Studies at the Australian National University (ANU), Australia. She is part of the network of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Her research explores the intersections between circus/comic performance, science and technology, and the cultural meanings of science.

Mirjam Hildbrand is a PhD candidate in Theatre Studies at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her research explores historical circus practice, the intersections between circus/theatre, and the discourse of 'high/low' culture. She also works as a freelance dramaturge and a programmer in the field of contemporary circus.

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Arts for all Senses: Circus and the Avant-Gardes - Introduction

Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Mirjam Hildbrand

PART 1

HISTORICAL CIRCUS, POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT AND AVANT-GARDES - INFLUENCES AND INTERRELATIONS

Chapter 2

A Treasure Trove for Avant-garde Artists? Metropolitan Circus Performances around 1900

Mirjam Hildbrand

Chapter 3

Circus, Dada, Vaudeville: Historical Avant-Garde - Between Popular and Experimental Theatre

Martina Gross

Chapter 4

'Attractive Novelties': Spectacular Innovation and the Making of a New Kind of Audience within Colonial Modernity

Martyn Jolly

PART 2

STAGING CIRCUS OUTSIDE THE RING: AVANT-GARDE EXPERIMENTS IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Chapter 5

Typocircus and the Czech Avant-Gardes

Anne Hultsch

Chapter 6

The Present as a Trick or the Assault on the Spectator's Psyche: Circus and the Soviet Avant-Garde

Oksana Bulgakowa

PART 3

STAGES OF TECHNOLOGY: CIRCUS, AVANT-GARDES AND (NEW) MEDIA

Chapter 7

'Like a Three-ring Circus': The Avant-garde Appropriates the Circus in the Battle between Distraction and Attractions

Tom Gunning

Chapter 8

The Animated Circus and New Arts of Motion

Kristian Moen

PART 4

CIRCUS-AVANT-GARDE BODIES: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTIC PHYSICALITIES

Chapter 9

'Glitter and Broken Bones': Professional Wrestling, Circus, Avant-Garde and the Radical Participatory Body

Claire Warden

Chapter 10

Glam Clowning: From Dada to Gaga - A Conversation with Le Pustra

Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Le Pustra

Chapter 11

The Aesthetics of Queer Work: Loïe Fuller's Exhausting Life as Performance Art in Stéphanie Di Giusto's The Dancer (2016)

Wesley Lim

PART 5

CIRCUS AND AVANT-GARDES REIMAGINED SINCE THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Chapter 12

Political Clowns, Thrilling Strong Women and Animal-Free Excitement: Circus Reimagined through 1970s Avant-Garde Political Theatre

Jane Mullett and Peta Tait

Chapter 13

Avant-Garde Gestures and Contemporaneity in Today's Circus

Louis Patrick Leroux

Chapter 14

'Today for the last time'? On the Cultural Meanings of Circus and the Avant-Gardes - Some Final Provocations

Mirjam Hildbrand, Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Aiden Essery

Notes on Contributors

Index