With a billion-dollar industry centred in Montreal, the province of Quebec has established itself as a major hub for contemporary circus. Cirque du Soleil has a global presence, and troupes such as Cirque Éloize and 7 doigts de la main are state-of-the-art innovators. The National Circus School of Montreal - the only state-funded elite training facility in North America - is an influential leader in technique. Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil’s Cirque du Monde supports arts for social change on many continents and is renowned for its social-circus training and research.

Cirque Global is the first book-length study of this new variety of circus and its international impact. The contributors offer critical perspectives on this rapidly developing art form and its aesthetics, ethics, business practices, pedagogical implications, and discursive significations. Essays explore creative, entrepreneurial, and cultural forces that are shaping Quebec’s dynamic nouveau cirque. Lavishly illustrated with photographs from circus performances, the volume showcases Quebec circus’s hybrid forms, which have merged the ethos and aesthetics of European circuses with American commercial and industrial creativity.

Cirque Global is the definitive study of the phenomenon of Quebec circus and is an important model for future research on contemporary circus.

Louis Patrick Leroux is an associate professor in both the English and French departments at Concordia University. A playwright and theatre director, he is also a scholar whose academic research focuses on cultural discourse, research-creation, Québec theatre, and contemporary circus.He was playwright in residence at Sudbury’s Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario (1993–94, 2005–06, and 2006–07), the Leighton Artists’ Studios at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 1994, and the CEAD International playwrights residency in 1999. He founded and managed Ottawa’s Théâtre la Catapulte in the 1990s and has since focused on impossible, improbable, and necessary drama.

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Charles R. Batson is associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Union College.

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