Choreographed Balances: New Synergies between Circus and Dance

Abstract

In a time when the hybridisation of forms is no longer an experiment but the latent hallmark of social reflection on our daily life, there is a fragmentation between certain types of audience according to the degrees of depth that we wish to perceive in our understanding of our environment. In the early 2000s, and very particularly in Brussels, the focus of the Flemish phenome- non, a magnetic rapprochement between the dance sector and contemporary circus was palpable, just after — chronologically speaking — the interdisci- plinary coming together between music, theatre (in all its genres) and dance, which had already greatly exploited the innovative creative possibilities of their fusion. It was time to take another step to satisfy the perpetual appetite of the contemporary avant-garde. We might think that, on this occasion, the inherent curiosity and the need for the eternal search for identity in the DNA of the performing arts inevitably brought the branches of dance and circus, so close and yet so distanced, face to face.