New work in contemporary circus

Chapter 4, New Work in Contemporary Circus, explores the ways in which the choreographed circus act, the traditional structural unit of circus, is currently being problematised. Traditionally circus artists often had their own unique act created to display their particular skills and bodily prowess, and they often performed the same act for most of their performing lives, and this remains the case in some New Circus and some Contemporary Circus. Although some performers enjoy the repetition and familiarity of continually performing the same act, it can lead others to experience their act as a form of imprisonment.
With the influx of artists from different disciplines into New Circus, the drive to create new work emerged as a vital way of contesting the ‘imprisonment’ of the act. New approaches to the creation of work came into Contemporary Circus from fields such as postmodern dance, postdramatic theatre, and site-specific performance. Group-devising processes and improvisational tasks became a way of enabling the circus artist to become a contributing creator involved in the creation of new work.
Many Contemporary Circus creators are contesting the sole function of the circus act as being a vehicle for the display of prowess, and are instead developing new kinds of circus acts designed to hold meaning. These new kinds of circus acts are often embedded in a wide range of innovative contexts, for example within performance material such as floor-based movement or autobiographical text often created through group-devising processes involving the performers as co-creators of the work. Other creators are now contesting the structure of the act altogether and have begun creating work which focuses on flows of performance material rather than the stop-start rhythm of traditional act-based structures.
In Part 2, the Voices section, conversations are included with 12 creators speaking about their approaches to the circus act, and to the making of new work: Shana Carroll (The 7 Fingers), Chelsea McGuffin (Company 2), Lachlan Binns and Jascha Boyce (Gravity and Other Myths), Sean Gandini (Gandini Juggling), Yaron Lifschitz (Circa), Firenza Guidi (Elan Frantoio; NoFit State), Johann Le Guillerm (Cirque Ici), Philippe Decouflé (Compagnie DCA), Jo Lancaster and Simon Yates (Acrobat), and Jennifer Miller (Circus Amok).