ABSTRACT
The first purpose of this chapter is to contribute to a long-ignored field of circus ethnography and the analysis of the significance of circus body presentation. Most of the author’s argument is illustrated through one acrobatic act presented in Jimmy Brown’s Circus in Britain during the late 1970s. Sport (the body engaged in gymnastics in particular is suggested as a comparative reference due to similarities in performance. Beyond a description of the acrobating body and its uniqueness, this chapter alludes to body presentation as a perspective for its context, that is, the codes and processes by which its significances are reproduced. The performance of the late 1970s ‘traditional circus’ is considered in this chapter as a reconstruction of the circus, which emerged through the reality of modernity characterized by fragmentation, the rise of fetishism, as well as the phenomenon of the spectacle.
