ABSTRACT
Since the late 1980s, when the French company Archaos brought their New Circus over to the British Isles, circus genres and, more recently, fairground genres have become a significant part of the contemporary live performance scene. The last few years have seen a proliferation of cabaret and circus-related genres (new circus, new burlesque, cruel cabaret) a revification of old fair-ground performance (freak shows, museums of curiosities, side shows) and the invention of new quasi-fairground genres (walkabouts and installations). The popularity of these genres is indicated by the fact that the Circus Development Agency was set up in 1999, and in 2010 the Roundhouse in Camden instituted its annual CircusFest. In the world of live performance, the glory days of early twentieth-century circus and fairground are frequently revisited. In terms of the performers themselves the age is a significant one in which live performance thrived in fairground and circus and was economically viable—even in the face of the increasing popularity of cinema. Revisiting burlesque, carnival and fairground is thus a way of validating the concept of live performance in a contemporary age not only of cinema but also of electronic media.
