PhD / In Australia, like most countries, circus has been an element, at times a very important element, in the mosaic that constitutes its popular culture. An outgrowth of the circus as recast in a modern form in London in the 18th century, an Australian circus profession has existed almost continuously since 1847. Australia’s circus entrepreneurs took the principal features of English, and later American, circus arts and management and reworked these features to suit their new antipodean context. The athletic, intellectually undemanding nature of its equestrian-based entertainments harmonised with the emerging patterns of modern Australia’s way of life. In time, Australia produced renowned circus artists of its own, even artists capable of reinvigorating the concept of circus in the very countries from which their art had been derived. Since their transience and labours, indeed their very existence, were somehow tangential and inconsequential to mainstream Australian society, Australia’s circus people did not attract tokens of recognition in story and verse as did shearers, drovers, diggers and other identities of the Australian outback. Their contribution to Australia’s social, economic and cultural development has been largely overlooked. Despite its pervasive role in Australia’s cultural life over more than 150 years, examples of academically grounded research into Australian circus are few. The primary aim of this study is to demonstrate the major themes evident in Australia’s circus history, in terms of society, enterprise and culture, between 1847 and 2006. None of these areas, of course, is exclusive of the others, especially the first and last named. These deliberations are framed within the broader influences and events apparent in Australian society and history. Implicit within this demonstration is the notion that circus, whatever its characteristics and merits as an artform, has been, and continues to be, a ‘barometer’ of social, economic and cultural change in Australia.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/283348 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | St Leon, Mark |
| Publisher | University of Sydney. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | The author retains copyright of this thesis., http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/copyright.html |
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