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Chapter 11 - Circus and Somatic Spectacularity on Stage in the Variety Era

from Part III - Circus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

Gillian Arrighi
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle, New South Wales
Jim Davis
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

The transatlantic circulation of circus acts during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries created opportunities for circus’s somatically spectacular acts to appear on pantomime and variety theatre stages. This chapter assesses a neglected aspect of circus scholarship: understanding how and why circus acts appeared in other popular entertainment forms. Circus, pantomime, and variety cultivated unity through their reliance on novelty. By tracing the performance engagements of a major circus-style act, Lockhart’s Elephants, in iconic variety venues in London, Paris, and New York City, I demonstrate the deep interrelatedness of modern circus and music hall/vaudeville. Performers frequently established and sustained their reputations in these economically powerful cosmopolitan centres, where heightened competition in the leisure marketplace increased circulation of circus performers. Nineteenth-century industrialisation and changing theatre regulations had transformed genres, allowing audiences more opportunity for leisure activities and theatres more opportunity to blur spoken drama and spectacle. The somatic spectacularity of circus acts provided essential counterpoints to pantomime and variety’s dominant performance modes. This dynamic relationship complicates our understanding of circus, pantomime, and variety as distinct genres, pressing scholars to reconsider the relative stability with which we deploy the terms and write their histories.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Bailey, Peter, ed. Music Hall: The Business of Pleasure. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Davis, Jim, ed. Victorian Pantomime: A Collection of Critical Essays. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.Google Scholar
Gutsche-Miller, Sarah. Parisian Music-Hall Ballet, 1871–1913. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Kibler, M. Alison. Rank Ladies: Gender and Cultural Hierarchy in American Vaudeville. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Kift, Dagmar. The Victorian Music Hall: Culture, Class, and Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Mayer, David. Harlequin in His Element: The English Pantomime, 1806–1836. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Saxon, A. H.The Circus As Theatre: Astley’s and Its Actors in the Age of Romanticism.’ Educational Theatre Journal 27, no. 3 (October 1975): 299312.Google Scholar
Snyder, Robert W. The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York. New York: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.Google Scholar
Stoddart, Helen. Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Tait, Peta. Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. London: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Ziter, Edward. The Orient on the Victorian Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.Google Scholar

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