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Chapter 3 - Circus, Colonialism, and Empire

The Circus in Australasia and Asia

from Part I - Transnational Geographies of the Modern 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

Following the establishment of the modern circus in London and Paris during the later decades of the eighteenth century, the circus began its steady dispersion around the world. The global transmission of this new sort of public entertainment by peripatetic performers and entrepreneurs was in no small measure attributable to waves of colonialism, industrial advances in transportation and communication, and motivations arising from commercial interests. This chapter charts the transference of the circus to Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), the territories of Southeast Asia (including present-day Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines), and the South Asian territories of the Indian subcontinent and China in the nineteenth century. What is little understood about the processes of circus transculturation in these regions is that circus companies originating from colonial territories undertook transnational touring projects, thus enacting aesthetic and transcultural movements between territories on the periphery of empire. This chapter brings to light the ways that circuses were agents of colonialism and empire, as well as transcultural transmitters of aesthetic innovation in the period that was both the Age of Empire and the Age of Modernity.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Arrighi, Gillian. ‘The Circus As an Agent of Transculturation.’ In Manegenkünste: Zirkus als äshetisches Modell, edited by Fuchs, Margarete, Jürgens, Anna-Sophie, and Schuster, Jörg, 135–52. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020.Google Scholar
Synthesising Circus Aesthetics and Science: Australian Circus and Variety Theatre at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.’ Early Popular Visual Culture 16, no. 3 (2018): 235–53.Google Scholar
Colligan, Mimi. Circus and Stage: The Theatrical Adventures of Rose Edouin and G. B. W. Lewis. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2013.Google Scholar
Ghosh, Anirban. ‘The Tropic Trapeze: Circus in Colonial India.’ PhD diss., Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, 2014. Accessed 31 January 2021. https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/20313/7/Ghosh_Anirban.pdf.Google Scholar
Mark, Mary Ellen. Indian Circus. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993.Google Scholar
Schodt, Frederik L. Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe: How an American Acrobat Introduced Circus to Japan – and Japan to the West. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Sissons, David C. S. ‘Japanese Acrobatic Troupes Touring Australasia 1867–1900.’ Australasian Drama Studies 35 (October 1999): 73107.Google Scholar
St Leon, Mark. ‘Novel Routes: Circus in the Pacific, 1841–1941.’ Popular Entertainment Studies 5, no. 2 (2014): 2447.Google Scholar
Tait, Peta. ‘Replacing Injured Horses, Cross-dressing and Dust: Modernist Circus Technologies in Asia.’ Studies in Theatre and Performance 38, no. 2 (2018): 149–64.Google Scholar
Weiner, Albert. ‘The Short Unhappy Career of Luigi Dalle Case.’ Educational Theatre Journal 27, no. 1 (March 1975): 7784.Google Scholar
Wirth, George. Round the World with a Circus. Melbourne: Troedel & Cooper Pty Ltd, 1925.Google Scholar

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