Chapter 6 - Catching On

Summary

Chinese acrobatic acts and their variants are pervasive in Western contemporary new circus shows around the world. These acts represent the multiple layers of training and performance of Chinese circus skills historically in China and their transference to the West since the Nanjing Project of 1983–4, an event that injected Chinese acrobatic training and acts into the repertoires of Australian new circus and then American new circus. Highly skilled Chinese acrobats and acts were also transplanted from China directly into circus in the West to great acclaim for their precision, acting as unofficial cultural envoys from Communist China. Political and financial will has shaped the evolution of Chinese acrobatic acts for centuries, as well as their introduction to the West, where, in true circus style, an old act is made new again by seeking new audiences and presenting the act in a contemporary form that also explores contemporary values of gender, sexuality, and identity. This chapter analyses specific Chinese acrobatic acts performed in circus in the West between 2011 and 2018, their historical origins in China, and how Chinese aesthetics and political boundaries have dissolved into the hybrid intercultural performance culture of the West in the twenty-first century.