Circus is a textless art form that is inextricably linked to the physical presence of acrobats. Their art is based on a different relationship to their own bodies, things and other species. It is an art that is inconceivable without the presence of danger and risk. While theatre is about conflict and failure, circus is based on the magic of success. Much of the circus has a connection to the pre-modern world. Its stage is the open arena, the circle, in the centre of which are the artists. The world of travelling circus artists stands in opposition to the rationalisation of theatre during the Renaissance, its domestication and its script-based nature. Their work is rarely institutionalised and has hardly become academic. In most European countries, the art of the circus is still a marginalised existence. Each performance comes to its audience like an alien invasion, setting up camp for a few days in the middle of a bourgeois world in which it remains the Other. Nevertheless, in recent decades Circe Nouveau has developed into an art form that is strongly influenced by contemporary dance, music and new technologies. Yet the DNA of an ancient art, based like no other on the artist’s close relationship to Eros and death, is also at work in it. What can this ancient art form teach us to overcome the anthropocentrism of theatre and the performing arts? What does the object-based turn mean for this art form? Is the circus the new Gaia theatre?
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Thomas Oberender, born 1966 in Jena, is an author and curator. From 2012-2021 he was artistic and executive director of the Berliner Festspiele / Gropius Bau. He founded 2016 the multi-year formats «Immersion» and 2017 «The New Infinity», which opened planetariums to the work of artists of the digital age. In curatorial teams he designed time-based exhibitions such as «Limits of Knowing», «Welt ohne Aussen», «Down to Earth» at the Gropius Bau and «The Sun Machine Is Coming Down» 2021 at the Berlin ICC. He was previously the theatre director of the Salzburg Festival and co-director of the Schauspielhaus Zurich. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Botho Strauß in 1999 and was co-founder of the authors’ theatre association «Theater neuer Typs» in 1997. He has published plays, reviews and essays on artists and political and aesthetic transformation processes. Work as a consultant for state institutions and individuals.