Coffee talk with Maddy and Stacey--Finding the Intersection Between Circus & Dance - CircusTalk

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Coffee talk with Maddy and Stacey–Finding the Intersection Between Circus & Dance

From July 3rd  to 13th 2018, over twenty  thinker-doers  from a dozen countries, all practitioners and scholars of contemporary circus and/or other performing arts, converged onto Montréal during the Montréal Complètement Cirque Festival to participate in Concordia University’s intensive summer graduate seminar taught by Prof. Louis Patrick Lerouxand titled “Experiential learning in Contemporary Circus Practice: Methods in research-creation, action-research and participant observation.” For two weeks, they attended lectures and seminars in the mornings, then in the afternoon, had studio time to work on their presentations or to attend participant-observation sessions as part of a larger research project, and of course, they attended performances in the evening.
In addition to their brief research-creation presentations, the students each produced two to three blogs during this period. We are offering a selection of those blogs. Some are candid, heartfelt, others analytical, some are critical takes, others are musings on students’research. They give a snapshot of what was on people’s minds during the summer intensive.Prof. Leroux and his teaching assistant, Alisan Funk, have also contributed original material to complement the students’ blogs. Check back every Friday until the New Year for an updated article from one of the participants!

Hey Maddy. Hey Stacey. What did you think ofPhénix?  (the Montréal Complètement Cirque Festival’s outdoor public performance that paraded through the street with highlighted moments/acts that culminated in a 30-minute stage show)

Maddy Hoak: I really enjoyed it, but I was surprised at how much it felt like a dance.

Stacey Carlson: I agree. The first time I saw it, I thought, “Wow, that’s a lot of dancing.”

How come?

M: The whole show was structured and composed like a dance piece, and the quality of movement in each of the acts felt more like dance than circus.

S: Yes, it was more like a sampler of dance and circus. They used a dance formula and less of what we know as traditional circus formulas. I saw a combination of classical, modern, and contemporary dance with a lot of contractions, turning leaps, arm-ography, and choreography of the space in and out of the circus acts.

M: Right. And there was a lack of that traditional outward “ta-da” moment that traditional circus does so well. Instead, there was a fluidity of movement — a certain “sequentiality” in the body — that I associate more with dance than with circus. It really stood out to me in the juggling act. They danced between tossing patterns, and even how they dealt with their drops was with a very fluid scoop. The body was emitting a particular energy that I associate more with dance than circus. The unifying costumes also made the cast feel like a corps de ballet.

Do you thinkPhénix is unique in its use of dance qualities and movements?

Un Poyo Rojo photo courtesy of Ishka Michocka

S: No. I have been in dance and circus for about 20 years and have noticed that circus artists have been stripping away their circus technique to learn how to sense their bodies and they are exploring the kinesthetic sensations and somatic ways of moving. The new part is that there is more of it happening, at least from what we saw in this year’s festival. Like in the Argentinian show,Un Poyo Rojo, the creators came from a dance background…they were supple, articulate, fluid, sensual, and strong.

M: I started to list all the dance references in  Un Poyo Rojo—  I lost track — there were too many! It was absolutely a dance. Earlier, out on the street, I saw a juggler busking who did chains, barrel turns, pirouettes, butterfly kicks, ronds de jambe… It was a pas de deux: the buckets were his partners he tossed about and spun. I also noticed the use of marley in the street performances. You usually only ever see marley in dance studios or shows. The French intellectual showChute! had a padded marley floor too. Now, that show felt like a modern dance class deconstructed —  just a study of weight share and play.

S: Exactly,Chute!  was a deconstruction of the sensation of the impact, the falling, the rolling, which included the quality changes. It was very postmodern and meta-theatre in its choreographic structure. They shaped the space with choices of proximity to each other, to the audience, and described their sensations and actions out loud. They included the use of levels, which I consider in the realm of dance structures.

M: Right, and that reminds me of how  Backbone ,from Australia, was a series of movement compositions all based on different games that are meant to generate choreography. It was like watching acrobats who had taken a dance comp class.

Backbone photo courtesy of Carnival Cinema

S: They also used a post-modern way of warming up to a big trick. Their use of composition and repetition of the movements in the space was very much dance. In fact, that is what I have noticed and enjoy about a lot of Australian circuses, their rawness, which touches on the humanness that dance can do so well.

M: And in Phénix the solo male dancer changed his shoes so that he was able to execute a series of grand jetés and pirouettes that unmistakably belong to the world of dance.

S: That moment stood out to me too. When he appeared, it was a break to the flow because he stood in preparation,which  caused me to notice his change of shoes. Could he have done the same movements in the shoes he had on? Could this balletic solo moment, which is normal in dance, be considered a circus moment?

Do all these movements/ structures/ qualities you’ve mentioned solely belong to dance?

M: Well, the post-modernist thought is that any movement is dance; dance is inherent in anything that uses the body. So… no.

S: Exactly. But are we categorizing movement phrasing alone? Or is it about the choreographic structures that are associated with dance? Are we limiting it to a combination of elements that then are recognized as dance? If so…it is dance.

M: Ok, so if dance is any movement, then everything is dance. It’s just dance  with a trapeze. Dance  with a tight wire.

S: For me, circus is the cherry on top.

In that case, what movements/ structures/ qualities belong to circus?

S: Oof. What is circus? What is dance? What do these labels mean? This is a familiar can of worms! Dance starts with the body, the corporeal. Circus does that too by demonstrating tricks that the majority of the population cannot do, like bending in extreme positions, tossing objects or even bodies in the air…Well, one distinguishable thing from this festival was a lack of apparatus and big tricks. For me, that is where circus overrides dance.

M: That’s interesting, I was drawn to circus as a performer because of the difference in corporeal experience as compared to dance. The centers of strength were different, my arms and core were worked in a new way. There was a whole new world available to me of vertical space and the upside down. I loved how aerial felt from the inside, and I felt incredibly accomplished that I could use my body in this way.

S: Exactly, on the apparatus you had a different corporeal experience. The apparatus allowed for verticality, for an opposing gravity that you could not do without that apparatus which requires a use of the body in a different way than being on the ground. The experience of hanging by your arms or legs to hold you in the air is very different than being on the ground defying gravity to hold on to a partner or using your legs to jump. I alsolove that about aerial. The challenge is to keep both experiences in your body, keepingup the strength in your dancer legs and the upper body necessary for aerial, which anyone trying to do both can understand.

Is that what you like to see in aerial and circus shows? A display of strength?

M: Well here’s where it gets tricky. The kind of circus I like to watch uses the easy, fluid transitions of dance, which tends to hide the muscular effort, the work of physical performance. The intention to hide the work gives the performance a different quality. That then changes what the audience is appreciating about the performance. Are they appreciating the effort that it takes to be a fabulous physical performer? Or are they appreciating how easy they make it look? Butthenit all depends onhow the performer presents the movement to the audience, not necessarily on what they are doing.

S: I can relate to this in regard to fluidity because often I have been told I am too fluid. Yet, that is my style in both circus and dance. A circus friend of mine was told he was too fluid and would need to hold some positions longer in order to get that WOW/circus factor we talked about before. Circus artists arestrivingfor fluidity while dancers are seeking the WOW factor! There is a lot of strength and control, a mind/body connection that is required in performing fluidly, which utilizes the somatic approach to access the muscles that initiate an action. This is the virtuosity in the many styles of circus and dance, whether traditional or multi-disciplinary.

You both seem frustrated that this festival felt more like a dance festival than a circus festival. Why?

Scotch & Soda photo courtesy of Sean Young

S: Maybe because of the title: circus festival. Part of why it is frustrating is that I come from a dance background and have been exploring what it is to blend genres and disciplines myself. I was always told there wasn’t enough  circus but now no one is being told that there isn’t enough dance. There are expectations of what circusis and those expectations are being challenged. At this festival one of the main-stage shows,Scotch & Soda, was the only one that held elements of a traditional circus formula. Circus now is so broad because it includes dance, theatre, and circus. If we’ve been wanting it, why is this frustrating?  

M: I’ll admit that I noticed these dance qualities and structures early on in the two weeks, and then I started to look for it. It waseverywhere: the use of classical music and opera that feels equivalent to ballet, the unison movement in  Phénix that felt like Pina Bausch. My friend and I commented that the long sleeves and then the way the fabric was used on the performers’ bodies reminded us of Martha Graham, and they are all wearing leotards —  a garment born from a circus artist, but now most associated, to me, with ballet.

It sounds like you don’t like circus borrowing from dance.

M: Not at all. I love that genres are blending.

S:  No, it isn’t that, I also love the blending of genres. I’ve been doing this for a long time and have seen it being done. In fact, I was told I blend too much. It is more that it seems there is a big excitement about the new ways in circus but to me, and some more familiar with dance, these ways are not new. So, it is more like, let’s understand where things are coming from…know the references. So why is it still bothering me?

M: Right. I can’t put my finger on it. But we have to recognize we’re talking mostly about  Phénix: one moment, from one choreographer, and one year at one festival.

S: Maybe it’s that particular choreographer and that particular choreographer’s style. But here we are in this seminar on contemporary circus, at this contemporary circus festival, and people come here because they want to learn that style, the Québecois way of circus as well as movement. I can tell when circus comes from Québec because of how they move on the ground and in the air.

M: And  Phénix was the longest, free outdoor spectacle that most of the public is going to see, most of the international people are going to see, so why not highlight what the Québecois style is? Is that what you’re saying?

S: I think so. But, I also think it is taking away; they’re losing what they have in their circus skills.

M: Yeah, something about circus adopting dance qualities hides the efforts but it also hides the circus.

S: While dancers are turning to circus to challenge themselves, like you and I, it seems like the trajectory of circus is that it will keep incorporating more and more dance choreographic structures, elements, and qualities.

M: I think we’re talking in circles again. 

S: Not really circles, but we are definitely chasing our tail. There is no one answer. That is why it is art. It gets people talking, which we certainly are still doing.

M: That sounds like a good conclusion to me! 

Related content: Soundtracking Circus Creations: A Checklist and a Case Study,  Circus Summer Seminar in MontrealMeanwhile, Backstage…, What It Means When Circus Artists Take Part in Graduate Research Courses, The More We Learn, The Less I Know

Madeline Hoak
Professor, Performer -United States
Madeline Hoak is an artist and academic who creates with, through, and about circus. She is a Writer for CircusTalk, Adjunct Professor of Aerial Arts and American Circus History at Pace University, Editor and Curatorial Director of TELEPHONE: an international arts game, and curator and director of Cirkus Moxie, a weekly contemporary circus show at Brooklyn Art Haus. Madeline has performed, coached, produced, and choreographed at elite regional and international venues. Her background in dance and physical theater is infiltrated into her coaching and creation style. She is passionate about providing her students holistic circus education that includes physical, historical, theoretical resources. Madeline initiated the Aerial Acrobatics program at her alma mater, Muhlenberg College, where she taught from 2012-2017. She is also a regular contributor to Cirkus Syd's Circus Thinkers international reading group. Her circus research has been supported by Pace, NYU, and Concordia University. Recent publications include "Teaching the Mind-Body: Integrating Knowledges through Circus Arts'' (with Alisan Funk, Dan Berkley), a chapter in Art as an Agent for Social Change, "expanding in(finite) between," a multimedia essay in Circus Thinks: Reflections, 2020, and "Digital Dance & TELEPHONE: A Unique Spectator Experience." Madeline has presented academic papers at numerous conferences including Circus and its Others (UC Davis), International Federation for Theatre Research (University of Reykjavík), the Popular Culture Association, Gallatin (NYU), and McGill University. Madeline earned an MA from Gallatin, New York University’s School of Independent Study, where she designed a Circus Studies curriculum with a focus on spectatorship.
Stacey Carlson
Choreographer
United States

Stacey (MFA candidate '19, University of Maryland) is a mother, choreographer, dancer, aerialist who has begun to dig deeper into storytelling, clowning, and puppetry. Her work merges the many disciplines she is trained in to blur the lines and to broaden the understanding of physical theater/circus. 


Feature photo of Chute courtesy of Vasil Tasevski
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Madeline Hoak

Madeline Hoak is an artist and academic who creates with, through, and about circus. She is a Writer for CircusTalk, Adjunct Professor of Aerial Arts and American Circus History at Pace University, Editor and Curatorial Director of TELEPHONE: an international arts game, and curator and director of Cirkus Moxie, a weekly contemporary circus show at Brooklyn Art Haus. Madeline has performed, coached, produced, and choreographed at elite regional and international venues. Her background in dance and physical theater is infiltrated into her coaching and creation style. She is passionate about providing her students holistic circus education that includes physical, historical, theoretical resources. Madeline initiated the Aerial Acrobatics program at her alma mater, Muhlenberg College, where she taught from 2012-2017. She is also a regular contributor to Cirkus Syd's Circus Thinkers international reading group. Her circus research has been supported by Pace, NYU, and Concordia University. Recent publications include "Teaching the Mind-Body: Integrating Knowledges through Circus Arts'' (with Alisan Funk, Dan Berkley), a chapter in Art as an Agent for Social Change, "expanding in(finite) between," a multimedia essay in Circus Thinks: Reflections, 2020, and "Digital Dance & TELEPHONE: A Unique Spectator Experience." Madeline has presented academic papers at numerous conferences including Circus and its Others (UC Davis), International Federation for Theatre Research (University of Reykjavík), the Popular Culture Association, Gallatin (NYU), and McGill University. Madeline earned an MA from Gallatin, New York University’s School of Independent Study, where she designed a Circus Studies curriculum with a focus on spectatorship.