Partnership between Concordia and National Circus School
Both Concordia University and National Circus School, through the Working Group, are currently forming a research partnership following three objectives:
1.Specialized knowledge retention in circus arts training and practice for performers and pedagogues;
2.The dissemination of circus-related knowledge through academic and industry channels;
3. Widening the scope and encouraging dynamic academic approaches to studying the circus arts (through research-creation, experiential practices, economic geography, sociology, and other complementary disciplines).
In order to address these objectives, over the next five years, the Working Group will focus its activities along three thematic axes which correspond to its ongoing work and anticipated fields of investigation:
1.circus pedagogy
2.historical traditions and current stakes of circus practices, including discourse, aesthetics, ethics, and economics
3.circus dramaturgy, including a series of hands-on experiential explorations between academics and circus artists.
While Concordia and National Circus School have not requested joint funding under a partnership grant program, individual researchers are encouraged to contribute to the Working Group in sharing their current, independently-funded, circus-related research. Members currently hold grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Québec’s Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture. The Working Group is an ideal venue for testing out hypotheses, for exchanging ideas with scholars from a wide range of expertises and with circus practitioners and teachers.
The Working Group seeks to establish a multidirectional flow of research knowledge encouraging scholars, teachers, practitioners, policy-makers, and industry to engage in a ongoing dialogue through networking opportunities, hands-on experiences and knowledge retention and dissemination.