What is the book about?
What are the different angles treated?
Histoire du Cirque - Histoire de l'Equitation - Histoire du Théâtre - Histoire des Loisirs
History of the Circus
De nombreux livres racontent l'histoire du cirque moderne. Seulement rares sont les auteurs qui ont travaillé au plus près des sources, tels Tristan Rémy et Christian Oger pour la France, George Speaight et Arthur Saxon pour l'Angleterre, qui ont fait de "vraies" recherches et véritablement consulté archives et documents du XIXe siècle.
Dès lors, hormis les travaux de ces auteurs, beaucoup d'ouvrages "historiques" ne sont que des reprises, parfois même des copies, qui véhiculent les mêmes informations, les mêmes erreurs, et participent à la construction d'une histoire souvent mystifiée, voire fallacieuse, parfois même caricaturale. D'autres ont cependant cherché à rendre compte de certains temps forts de l'histoire du cirque et des artistes. Néanmoins l'approche reste celle d'une histoire linéaire et monographique où le cirque est traité hors de tout contexte ou comme une exception culturelle voire marginale..
Certains n'oublient pas la dimension internationale, l'étendue du phénomène et la propagation d'une expression protéiforme à travers le monde et pourtant traitée comme une seule et même, mais ces travaux traitent de la fin du XIXe siècle et du XXe siècle. Le siècle qui précède, de 1768 aux années 1860 est généralement résumé "à l'idée d'Astley" (élaborer un lieu fixe pour ses spectacles) et la façon dont les Franconi et d'autres artistes se saisissent du "format" pour l'exploiter à leur tour.
L'ingéniosité et l'esprit d'entreprise de certains ont été à la source d'initiatives promises à un bel essor, mais "tout cela" n'est pas sorti d'un chapeau et n'a pas rencontré de succès seulement parce que "l'idée" était une "bonne idée".
Mon souhait initial ayant été de comprendre pourquoi le cirque à eu un tel succès public il me fallait comprendre le contexte et les conditions d'apparition et de développement du cirque moderne. Par conséquent l'ouvrage ne traite pas "que" de l'histoire du cirque mais aussi de l'histoire de l'équitation, de l'histoire du théâtre, du phénomène de la commercialisation des loisirs et de l'histoire des représentations. Travailler au sujet du cirque appelait d'étudier d'autres historiographies et, à rebours "l'objet cirque" venait comme un contrepoint, questionner à son tour ces autres domaines sous un angle inédit car ni l'histoire de l'équitation, ni l'histoire du théâtre, n'avaient accordé d'espace au cirque au sein des approches historiques ou historiographiques de leurs propres domaines d'études.
L'historiographie anglo-américaine de "la commercialisation des loisirs" a là offert des outils d'analyse et des univers de référence permettant d'autant mieux de contextualiser les trajectoires des personnalités et de leurs aventures entrepreneuriales permettant de saisir combien le cheval et le cirque ont joué un rôle particulièrement actif dans l'essor de la sphère des divertissements, de l'edutainment , du sport, de la fabrique d'une mémoire historique commune et des représentations de l'ailleurs tels que ces univers sont au coeur de la culture moderne.
Ainsi, "Du Théâtre équestre au cirque" a moins pour objet l'histoire du cirque à proprement parler que de donner à comprendre, par le biais du cirque et de "pourquoi et comment l'essor de ce spectacle s'est produit", le phénomène de la commercialisation des loisirs dans l'Europe de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et au cours du XIXe siècle.
En replaçant le spectacle, ses producteurs et leurs productions dans le contexte social, économique et culturel des deux pays où émerge et se développe cette nouvelle offre spectaculaire qu'est le cirque, ce sont toutes les stratégies des entrepreneurs de spectacles et l'approche des innovations culturelles, comme la définition de nouveaux espaces, pratiques et représentations du temps libre qui se dessinent.
On comprend alors comment ces entrepreneurs ont créé les lieux de spectacles les plus vastes qui existaient alors, pour accueillir un public de plus en plus nombreux à assister à de "grands spectacles" où le sensationnel ne cesse de défricher de nouveaux univers créatifs. La plongée au coeur de la commercialisation des loisirs permet de saisir le processus et les procédés de la fabrique des innovations culturelles, de leur entrée sur le marché des loisirs et des enjeux qui déterminent la possibilité - ou non - d'un passage à l'échelle, d'une viabilité économique et du succès public.
Cette question du public qui était à l'origine de mes travaux de recherche et de ma thèse imposait en effet de comprendre le spectacle, ses composantes, les lieux, les rythmes, les répertoires comme les références et les imaginaires convoqués par les cirques. Là aussi la commercialisation des loisirs, comme l'histoire de l'équitation, sont essentielles pour saisir pourquoi et comment la créativité du cirque, la proposition spectaculaire mais aussi celle des enseignements, et ce temps de divertissement, occupent l'espace au sein des circulations culturelles et des sociabilités à Paris et à Londres entre 1760 et 1860.
Horse Riding History
The equestrian literature is immense. Mainly technical and scholastic, this production nevertheless includes many contemporary researches treating about the horse in society: its military, economic, cultural, or even symbolic role. If royal carousels, horse races, or rodeos have interested several researchers, no one has really looked into horses in entertainment shows... in the circus and the theatre.
The circus, during the 19th century, existed "by", "for" and "with" the horse. He is the actor and the vector of new stagings, with a narrative creativity specific to his "character". The horse is therefore central to the existence of the circus. Conversely, the circus holds a fundamental place both in the dissemination of equestrian knowledge and the demonstration, discussion and controversies of equestrian methods.
To tell the story of the circus during its first century is therefore a way to lift the veil on a whole section of equestrian culture as it spreads and is represented on the ring, questioning in particular for instance sub-subjects of equestrianism such as vaulting on horseback and the way it questions methods of learning, professional expertise and recognition by peers.
History of the Theater
The history of theater and theatrical studies bring together an immeasurable production. Even larger when one considers what has been written in France AND England. From the construction of the establishments, to stage play, to theatrical art, costumes and sets, scenography, through the life of actors, authors, censors, through registers, morality, politics, ... so much has been studied already. However, as reminded during a study day at Rennes 2 University in 2013, whole sections remain fallow among which the minor genres.
In France, in particular, a bias has distorted the theatrical field: the study of the past has long been made in the light of 20th century categories and contemporary classifications, especially linked to cultural policies and the organization of the Ministry of Culture from 1959. The circus being called "circus" (without the word theatre in it) since the end of the 19th century, and known in the 20th century as a spectacle without text or author, this genre was quite simply erased, obscured, ignored from theatrical studies - with a few rare exceptions - until the late 1990s.
Another essential aspect of the history of the theater has long been left behind until the recent works of Christophe Charle (2009) and Jean-Claude Yon (2012): private theatres, admittedly exploiting minor genres, but above all relating to an economy of its own, where the stakes of profitability generate a different relationship to management of course, but also to the renewal of the repertoire, a fortiori to innovation so to ensure that the public comes back to buy a seat.
The example of the theater-circus, as discussed in the book, also illustrates how cultural entrepreneurship and cultural innovation have been, since the end of the 18th century, performative processes, which generate in France, as in England, the emergence of activities, diversification, experimentation, novelties, variety and creativity within shows and theaters themselves, aside of what is usually considered mainstream of creativity: the geious pf the author. Well before recent considerations about what is perceived in France as emerging cultural entrepreneurship , since the years... 2000 (see for example the synthesis of contemporary questions about the recent evolution of the sector, very well summarized here ), there has been cultural entrepreneurship among the private branches of theatricals and spectaculars.
In recalling that circus was a theatre, and by recounting how and why the circus had obtain this status, the history of theater is dealt through an unusual aspect. The history of the circus is not told through the institution but through the strategies and means deployed by those who created it.
History of Leisure
Therein lies probably the greatest challenge of the comparison between France and Great Britain that the book carries because if the evolution of the history of the circus is similar on both sides of the Manche, the world of references and contexts are not the same as the historiography of the commercialization of leisure is very different in both countries.
To summarize in a very caricatural way, the "making of culture" is not considered in the same way in France and in England. In France, the approach to culture is above all considered from the angle of Letters and that of the Author (creation) and " what makes literate" (dominant culture) while, in Great Britain and the United States, culture is considered as an expression or an achievement (performance). Also, what "is" and what "makes" culture is not identical depending on the territory and the space of expression.
These very distinct meanings, until the 1990s, have, by force of circumstance, structured thought patterns and very different analysis depending on the country, with the damage, in France, of concealing subjects from the historical field and social sciences, or of dividing them in a binary way (dominant /dominated culture, high/popular culture) whereas these subjects are no less derived from the processes of production and practices.
In the same vein of shifts in meaning , but this time from a temporal point of view, the distinction between sport(s) and leisure is very recent, and dates from the second half of the 20th century. Even in English, for the previous periods, sports, theater, music etc. are included in the term "leisure". It is therefore rather anachronic to speak of "sports and leisure" in the 18th and 19th centuries, in France as in England, sports being considered that time a part, or synonym, of leisure - except when practiced for educational purposes and this is precisely another aspect addressed in the book via the role of horse riding.
I rewrite it, these distinctions are very simplified, but these shortcuts are essential to underline the great conceptual differences between France and England, and to understand the part , in Anglo-American historiography, of works devoted to the commercialization of leisure in the 18th and 19th centuries. In France, the history of leisure is still in its infancy, despite Alain Corbin's seminal work (1998), which dates the phenomenon of leisure from 1850 to 1960 though in ENgland historians place it a century earlier (...), the commercialization of leisure is treated by many English and American historians as a determining process of economic history, urbanization, gentrification and sociability (for more information, see C. Hodak, 2000, here ). The fact that this angle is neglected in France* has produced, and probably still does , a lack of understanding about the process of commercialization of culture and the dissemination among a growing number of the population of common references.
Above all, this completely obscures the context of the emergence of a new profession, that of entrepreneurs at the very moment when the English are reappropriating this term, which is nevertheless originally, a French word. Entrepreneurs, particularly leisure entrepreneurs, are becoming a group all the more identifiable as their sector is fallow ground where everything is yet to be invented, imposing all the more on states and jurisdictions to rethink the laws which frame the authorizations to exercise this or that profession. In the world of shows, theaters and sports, these processes of innovation and legitimization are decisive in the definition of spheres of exercise, as well as in creative impulses and the invention of new spheres of production.
However, Du Théâtre équestre au Cirque does not present this issue from a theoretical angle. On the contrary, the history of the circus illustrates commercialization of leisure activities in the making. In this, the book illustrates a process at work via the trajectory of individuals who have embarked on a theatrical enterprise. On horseback.
* Note a very recent development as evidenced by the issue entitled "Les Commerces du Théâtre" of the Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre , Trimester 2, 2017 which we can regret, however, that apart from the article by Stéphanie Loncle (“ The theatre, a commercial enterprise? Theatre and commerce in Paris under the July Monarchy) devoted to the liberal period of the July Monarchy (1830-1848), the articles mainly deal with the period after 1860 after the major turning point of the law of 1864 which consecrates the liberalization of theaters. It should be noted that the process of commercialization of leisure is absent from the articles and that the term chosen is indeed that of "commerce" in connection with political liberalism and the related laws (in particular the passage des théâtres , for a short time, under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior au Ministry of Commerce). Which is not without interest, of course, but restricts the notion of trade to liberal ideology and to the political system even though the process of commercialization is part of a long time, multiple experiences which themselves nourish the arguments of supporters and opponents of liberalisation, well ahead of it. The century preceding the turning point of 1864 unfortunately remains too little considered in terms of its economic reality on the ground.