Biennale Internationale des Arts du Cirque

Last updated

The Biennale Internationale des Arts du Cirque is the largest contemporary circus festival in the world, held in the south of France every two years. The event is organised by the Archaos circus company, and the first edition, in 2015, attracted sixty circus companies from around the world and drew more than 85,000 visitors. [1]

Contents

History

The Archaos circus company is one of the legendary contemporary circus companies in Europe. Their work in Britain changed the way the circus was seen and the founder of Archaos, Pierrot Bidon, was seen as a circus revolutionary. In Bidon's obituary in The Guardian, Archaos was described as "one of the ensembles that galvanised the new circus movement, in which traditional arts have been re-imagined and combined with contemporary artistic sensibilities and theatrical techniques." [2]

The Biennale itself was born out of the Circus in Capitals project that Archaos managed as part of Marseille-Provence 2013, the European Capital of Culture festivities. The success of the circus arts during the Marseille Provence 2013 inspired the Archaos company to create the first Biennale Internationale des Arts du Cirque in 2015. The first biennale featured circus companies such as Nofit State Circus, Cirque Éloize, and the Chinese State Circus. [3]

The first Biennale was such a success that in 2016 the company created the L'Entre–Deux Biennales to meet public demand and continue to foster the circus arts in years when the Biennale was not being held. Archaos was nominated for the Best Producer award for the L'Entre-Deux Biennales project at the 2016 Annual International Professional Circus Awards in Sochi, Russia that were organised by the Russian Ministry of Culture. Archaos was also chosen to present performances at the Club France that was held during the Rio Olympics in August 2016. [4]

2017 Biennale

The second edition of the Biennale ran from January 21 to February 19, 2017. It featured more than 260 performances in close to 30 cities in the south of France including Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Grasse, and Gap. The 2017 Biennale included new work from leading British companies NoFit State Circus and Motionhouse, the Swedish company Cirkus Cirkör, and the Brazilian company Borogodo. More than 120,000 people attended events.

2019 Biennale

The third edition of the Biennale ran from January 11 to February 10, 2019. More than 110,000 people attended 67 different shows. Newspapers in France such as Les Echos and Le Monde called it the circus equivalent of the Festival d'Avignon. [5] [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avignon</span> Prefecture of Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur, France

Avignon is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the commune had a population of 93,671 as of the census results of 2017, with about 16,000 living in the ancient town centre enclosed by its medieval walls. It is France's 35th largest metropolitan area according to INSEE with 337,039 inhabitants (2020), and France's 13th largest urban unit with 459,533 inhabitants (2020). Its urban area was the fastest-growing in France from 1999 until 2010 with an increase of 76% of its population and an area increase of 136%. The Communauté d'agglomération du Grand Avignon, a cooperation structure of 16 communes, had 197,102 inhabitants in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur</span> Administrative region of France

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, also known as Région Sud, is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, the far southeastern on the mainland. Its prefecture and largest city is Marseille.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese State Circus</span>

The Chinese State Circus is a touring circus that presents Chinese circus arts to European audiences. The show is based on Chinese acrobatic acts. All the performers come from China and are trained in the Chinese tradition of Ma Xi, or hippodrama. But no live animals are used in the Chinese State Circus shows.

Archaos is a French contemporary circus created by Pierrot Bidon in 1986. It began as an alternative, theatrical circus without animals, featuring dangerous stunts like chainsaw juggling, fire breathing, wall of death, etc. The company is considered a pioneer of the contemporary circus. Today, Archaos is based in Marseille, France, and is a designated Pôle National des Arts du Cirque. Archaos is also the main organiser of the Biennale Internationale des Arts du Cirque, the world's largest contemporary circus festival.

Hélène Châtelain was a French actress who appeared as "the woman" in Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962), and later worked with playwright Armand Gatti and Iossif Pasternak. She was also a translator, writer and filmmaker (Goulag).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Bismuth</span> French artist and filmmaker

Pierre Bismuth is a French artist and filmmaker based in Brussels. His practice can be placed in the tradition of conceptual art and appropriation art. His work uses a variety of media and materials, including painting, sculpture, collage, video, architecture, performance, music, and film. He is best known for being among the authors of the story for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay alongside Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman. Bismuth made his directorial debut with the 2016 feature film Where is Rocky II?.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Festival d'Avignon</span> Annual arts festival in France

The Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon every summer in July in the courtyard of the Palais des Papes as well as in other locations of the city. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest existent festival in France. Alongside the official festival, the "In" one, a number of shows are presented in Avignon at the same time of the year and are known as the "Off".

Cirque Éloize is a contemporary circus company founded in Montreal in 1993 by Daniel Cyr, Claudette Morin, Jeannot Painchaud.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Gomart</span>

Thomas Gomart is a French historian of international relations and the director of IFRI since 2015. He was previously vice-president for strategic development at IFRI, and director of the Russia/NIS Center and of the trilingual electronic collection Russie.NEI.Visions in English.

Cirque Plume is an internationally renowned contemporary circus company founded in 1984 by Bernard Kudlak in the Franche-Comté region of France.

Pierrot Bidon was a French circus promoter. He formed circus troupe Archaos in 1984 and directed The Circus of Horrors in 1995. His work with Archaos revolutionised the concept of the contemporary circus in Europe. The Independent newspaper described him as being "one of the founding fathers of New Circus" while The Daily Telegraph argued his work paved the way for the success of companies such as the Cirque de Soleil.

Contemporary circus is a genre of performing arts developed in the late 20th century in which a story or theme is conveyed through traditional circus skills. This recognisable genre could arguably be more akin to Variety as animals are rarely used in this type of performance, and traditional circus skills are blended with a more choreographic or character-driven approach. Compared with the traditional circuses of the past, the contemporary approach tends to focus more attention on the overall aesthetic impact, sometimes on character and story development, and on the use of lighting design, original music, and costume design to convey thematic or narrative content.

Maurice Féaudierre, better known by his pen-name, Serge, was born in Paris on December 14, 1901. He was a French journalist, chronicler, painter and illustrator, whose main interests were circus, variety, and the Gypsies—which were the subjects of his many books, paintings and drawings, magazine articles, and radio shows.

Melik Ohanian is a French contemporary artist of Armenian origin. He lives and works in Paris and New York City. His work has been shown in many solo exhibitions including Galerie Chantal Crousel, Centre Pompidou and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, South London Gallery in London, De Appel in Amsterdam, IAC in Villeurbanne, Yvon Lambert in New York, Museum in Progress in Vienna, and Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pascal Rambert</span>

Pascal Rambert is a French writer, choreographer, and director for the stage and screen. He was born in 1962.

Jean Gillibert was a French psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, poet, translator, playwright and theatre director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lotfi Achour</span> Tunisian writer, producer and director

Lotfi Achour is a Tunisian writer, producer and director for theater and cinema. He is the author of more than 25 theater productions on different stages. His last show was co-produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company for the 2012 Olympic Games London. In cinema, he produced three award-winning shorts presented at dozens of festivals, including Père nominated the 2017 Césars and La laine Sur Le Dos in official competition at Cannes in 2016, and nominated for the 2017 Academy Awards. In 2016, he directed and produced his first feature film, Demain Dès L'Aube.

Olivier Dubois is a French contemporary dance choreographer.

The 7 Fingers is an artist collective based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The group is also known by its French name "Les 7 doigts de la main", which is sometimes shortened to "Les 7 Doigts".

Olivier Vadrot is a French artist and designer that studied architecture. In his work, he embraces many disciplines ranging from music, to scenography and public furniture. He is known for his mobile architecture and exploration of the ergonomy of ancient theatres. His works have been exhibited at Centre Pompidou and at the 2017 Biennale of Architecture in Lyon. Some of his projects are part of the collections owned by French cultural institutions such as FRAC Aquitaine in Bordeaux, musée régional d'art contemporain Occitanie (Mrac), FRAC Paca in Marseille and Frac Île-de-France.

References

  1. "Marseille, capitale internationale du cirque". 30 January 2015.
  2. Borkowski, Mark (21 March 2010). "Pierrot Bidon obituary". the Guardian.
  3. Walgenwitz, Catherine. "La grande parade de la Biennale des arts du cirque - Journal La Marseillaise". Archived from the original on 2017-01-18. Retrieved 2017-01-12.
  4. "A Rio, les pays soignent leurs façades dans leurs maisons olympiques". 14 August 2016.
  5. "Le Biennale de Marseille est au cirque ce que le festival d'Avignon est au théâtre". 9 February 2019.
  6. "Le cirque en quête d'absolu à Marseille". Le Monde.fr. 4 February 2019.