Arts & Media Archaeology

In-between Imagination and Politics: Writing the History of Circus

14 October 2024 - Franziska Trapp & Gwendolien Sabbe

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Location: S.S209 ARIA attic, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, 2000 Antwerp

​Time: 15h-17h, unless communicated otherwise

​Target audience: junior academic and artistic researchers

Preparatory reading:

About Franziska Trapp 
Franziska Trapp is a postdoctoral researcher at the University Libre de Bruxelles. She is the founder of the research project Circus | Studies and organizer of international conferences including Semiotics of the Circus (2015), UpSideDown - Circus and Space (2017), Semaine du Cirque (2020), Écrire l’histoire du cirque (2022) and New Circus - New Architectures? (2024). She is the initiator of the Young Researchers Network in Circus Studies (YOUR | Circus), co-initiator of the Circus Arts Research Platform (CARP), and co-editor of the academic journal Circus: Arts, Life and Sciences. Trapp has worked for various circus productions such as the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain (FR) and Cirque Bouffon (DE) and collaborated as a dramaturge with Tall Tales Company (NL), Sysmo (BE), Julia Berger (DE) and Cie Equinoctis (FR), among others. She was awarded third place as Germany’s Best Junior Research Talent of 2019 (Deutscher Hochschulverband) and received the DGS Young Researcher Award 2020 for her PhD entitled "Lektüren des Zeitgenössischen Zirkus" (De Gruyter 2020, Routledge 2024).

About Gwendolien Sabbe

Gwendolien Sabbe is a circus historian and independent researcher. She studied history at the University of Leuven and holds a digital storytelling postgraduate degree from KASK Gent. Her research focuses on Belgian circus artists who journeyed to America between 1900-1940 to work for the circus, vaudeville theatre, and/or the State Fairs.

She shares their stories through articles in Circusmagazine, a lecture and her online platform Circus Nomads (www.circusnomads.com, Facebook and Instagram).

She combines her research with a job as circus and comedy programmer at Cultural Centre De Spil in Roeselare. By integrating circus history in the program, she gives circus festival de groote stooringe a unique identity amongst the other outdoor arts festivals. She is also a member of the editorial board of Circusmagazine and the board of Miramiro, a creation workspace for circus based in Ghent.