The history of displaying exotic animals seems to be one of evolving public expectations about what constitutes acceptable conditions. Is it a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same?
This is not an animal rights issue – it’s a question of other people’s ethics.
The use of live animals in the visual arts provokes important ethic questions. Pictured: Pierre Huyghe Untilled (2011-2012).
Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin.
An exhibition of works by contemporary French artist Pierre Huyghe raises questions around the ethical treatment of animals by artists - and whether live animals have a place in the visual arts.
Contemporary circus and circus-infused physical theatre are amongst Australia’s most innovative and in-demand cultural exports. It’s a performance craft with a proud history behind it.
James Thierrée’s Tabac Rouge - a ghoulish dreamscape “choreodrama” at Sydney Festival.
AAP/Paul Miller
French circus performer and director James Thierrée famously eschews comparison with his grandfather Charlie Chaplin, to whom he bears a conspicuous resemblance. But as he and his troupe stood on stage…
In the realm of pop culture, ‘killer clowns’ have really proliferated and fostered coulrophobia – the fear of clowns.
Mark Crossfield
When Australian singer and TV personality Mark Holden appeared as a clown recently on Channel 7’s Dancing with the Stars, his supposedly “bizarre” behaviour sparked furious debate and complaints to the…
In Opus, circus and chamber music collide in an astounding fashion.
Melbourne Festival
Rambunctious, athletic circus with elegant, controlled chamber music. Do opposites collide? Not in Opus, an intriguing collaboration between the chamber music Debussy String Quartet from Lyon, France and…
The Ninja Circus from Mutitjulu shows the benefits social circus can deliver.
Ninja Circus
What if social policy-makers knew how beneficial circuses were to the community? This was the provocation pitched to circus producers, trainers, performers and academics who met in the Melba Spiegeltent…
A renewal of the circus arts has been underway since the 1970s.
Cirkopolis/Melbourne Festival
Elegance, elite athleticism, light-handed humour and a gentle narrative about the value of individuality are the principal elements of Cirkopolis, which opens this week at the Melbourne International Arts…
Performers cavort around five onstage bathtubs in Soap, currently playing at the Brisbane Festival.
Andy Phillipson/Brisbane Festival
Traditionally soap is made by rendering down lard. But in this tight show, Soap, playing at the Brisbane Festival, there isn’t an ounce of fat to be seen. The pace is fast and the bodies are lean. It’s…
Animals in circuses are kept in anything but natural surroundings.
DirkJan Ranzijn
The idea of animals as spectacle – in zoos, circuses, aquaria, tests of strength and even criminal proceedings – is an old one, dating back to at least ancient Greece and Rome. Similarly, the use of animals…