Thinking Through Circus gathers ten dialogues with and between circus artists. Each entry bears witness to how a specific circus practice is (also) a practice of critical thinking, revealing how feminism, queerness, dramaturgy, love, disobedience, posthumanism and the aesthetico-political imaginary are rethought in and through contemporary circus practice.With this book, The Circus Dialogues wants to tend to the embodied relationships between contemporary circus and today’s world, defending circus as a field in which experimental thinking is already happening and can continue to happen. Doing so, they hope to contribute to a more sustainable circus, expanding both accountability and agency within our field.The Circus Dialogues is a two-year artistic research project at KASK School of Arts Ghent (BE) led by Bauke Lievens (BE), Quintijn Ketels (BE), Sebastian Kann (US/DE) and accompanied by Vincent Focquet (BE). Their work delves into and makes space for encounters between theory and artistic circus practice. The Circus Dialogues aims to shine a light on the circus as a field in which experimental thinking is already happening, and they work to ensure the ongoingness of such thinking in an artistic and institutional ecology that’s long-term sustainable. They do this first and foremost through our diverse artistic practices. In parallel, they organise reading groups and collaborative gatherings for circus artists. They have also published several Open Letters to the Circus. Their activities are conceived with the intention of helping to imagine the circus field as both important and political. Most importantly, they defend circus as an open and undefinable form.176 pages, 16 x 22 cm, hardcover, Art Paper Editions (Ghent).
