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Louis Patrick Leroux is a playwright, director, and professor who holds a joint appointment in the departments of English and French studies at Concordia University in Montreal, where he is also affili- ated with Resonance Lab and matralab. His academic research and graduate supervision has focused on self-representation in Québec drama, cultural discourse, literatures on the margins, research-creation, and contemporary circus. He is the founding director of the Montreal Working Group on Circus Research, and, during 2012-14, has been a resident scholar at Montreal's National Circus School, where he is also an ongoing collaborator with the Canada Industrial Research Chair in Circus Arts. He has recently coedited Cirque Global: Québec's Expanding Circus Boundaries (under review) with Charles Batson, and Le jeu des positions: Discours du théâtre québécois with Hervé Guay (2014).
In this interview, Leroux speaks of his gradual understanding of what circus dramaturgy might entail, following his recent experiences working with 7 Fingers (Les 7 Doigts de la Main) and the National Circus School.
Cruz: Why has dramaturgy started to become a popular topic in contemporary circus studies?
Leroux: Circus, while a performing art, often integrated elements of narrative and always featured strong performances, but did not tell stories in the same manner as theatre. Action was projected onto bodies; the sense of risk and danger, and the very investment of both performers and audi- ences, was heightened by actual experience rather than imitated or represented authenticity. You can't fake a tumble, a jump, a fall. I've been working on a model of circus, which is Québec- based, and basically branched out from the French Nouveau Cirque model. The Nouveau Cirque (New Circus/Contemporary Circus) was born in the 1970s in France and was basically shedding away of the circus clans, circus families tradition, and opening up circus to a more artistic and sociopolitical engagement. Attempting to give sense-political and aesthetic-to the circus act beyond its own spectacle. Once you start using circus to tell stories to make a point, other than just entertain, the issue of dramaturgy does come up.
Cruz: What influence did Cirque du Soleil have in this evolution of circus arts in Canada?
Leroux: In Quebec, basically, we have a huge locomotive called Cirque du Soleil which used the French Nouveau...