Tait, Peta – Circus Bodies. Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. Abingdon, Inglaterra, Reino Unido, 2005.
Veja Artigo da autora em nosso link: Circus Bodies Defy the Risk of Falling (pdf)
Synopsis: This pioneering study is one of the major publications in the increasingly popular and largely undocumented area of circus studies. Through photographs and illustrations, Peta Tait presents an extraordinary survey of 40 years of trapeze acts and the socially changing ideas of muscular action in relation to our understanding f gender and sexuality. She questions how spectators see and enjoy aerial actions, and what cultural dentities are presented by bodies in fast, physical aerial movement. Adeptly locating aerial performance within the wider cultural history of bodies and their identities, “Circus Bodies” explores this subject through a range of films such as “Trapeze” (1956) and “Wings of Desire” (1987) and Tait also examines live performances including: * the first trapeze performers: Leotard and the Hanlon Brothers * female celebrities; Azella, Sanyeah, black French aerialist LaLa, the infamous Leona Dare, and the female human cannonballs * twentieth-century gender benders; Barbette and Luisita Leers * the Codonas, Concellos, Gaonas, Vazquez and Pages troupes * imaginative aerial acts in Cirque de Soleil and Circus Oz productions.
This book will prove an invaluable resource for all students and scholars interested in this fascinating field.
About the Author
Peta Tait is Professor of Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University, Australia. She is author of Performing Emotions: Gender, Bodies, Spaces in Chekhov’s Drama and Stanislavski’s theatre (2002) as well as books on gender identity in Australian theatre, and editor of Body Show/s (2000).
