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Published October 2018 - Prix Cadre Noir of the Académie Pégase, 2019
At the turn of the 18th century, the emergence of the modern circus has put show entrepreneurs, along with horses, at the heart of the history of entertainment and commercialization of leisure where, both in France and England, stakeholders molded a complete new genre of spectaculars.
At the crossroads of theatre history, sport, knowledge dissemination, and also war history, the book unfolds the tactics and processes that enabled the making of cultural innovations and the structuring of a new spectacular offer, where the horse opens the way to new theatrical and entertainment types. Thus it takes us into the economic history of culture entrepreneurship at the junction of state controls and market laws, into the economy of entertainment.
From 500 spectators one evening in 1768, to 300,000 in one summer in 1854, the story of the circle illustrates how the horse regenerates theatrical creativity, gives new emphasis to heroes and myths, gives rise to new narratives and stagings, building new cultural references that transform how audiences relate to the extraordinary, the sensational... and to national identity, in what was a real cultural phenomenon in 19th c.
Preface by Daniel Roche
WHYTHIS WEBSITE
This website was launched in 2018 when I published my book Du Théâtre équestre au cirque, which resulted from the research I carried in History and Social Sciences for the PhD I submitted in 2004. It is dedicated to the materials that were left out of the book - long enough as it is. But as everyone knows, once you start digging into a subject, you find more and more materials, build up amounts of data and it is a shame that the work done may be of no use for others to jump from.
At a time when open source and open access in academia are an issue institutions try to deal with, it seemed to me that disseminating some of my own findings could be a stepping stone for other researchers to gain time and dig further.
So here are some more elements about the cultural and material history of the circus in France and England between 1750 and 1860, about the men and women who made it happen and developed its continuous evolutions. But this website also brings insights about theatre, entertainment, horse riding, the commercialisation of leisure, the dissemination of knowledge and the construction of common culture and common images about national history and memory, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural innovations through the specificities of the circus as an architectural and economic venue... which are the topics that circuses led me to unfold. So this website is about circuses in Paris and London. But not only.
Thus, TheatreCirque.com aims to provide easy access to data and texts that could not fit in the book and which, thanks to the web, complement the printed edition. The topics and documents you will find here are intended for students and researchers in history, cultural and art studies, but also for those who are just curious about these subjects. Happy reading!
CIRCUS TIMELINE
Chronology. The history of the circus is that of individuals as much as that of establishments. This frieze (visible only on desktop) shows all the major dates of the inaugurations of new circuses, equestrian theaters and hippodromes, in Paris and London, from 1768 to 1900.
Details, here , for the successive names and managers of Astley's Amphitheater and here for managers of the Théâtre du Cirque Olympique, other circuses and hippodromes in Paris.
DOCS&
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