Research
An interdisciplinary inquiry into the researching, archiving, transmissions, and potential reverberations of memories of circus performances, Anna Vigeland’s project places a particular emphasis on the memories (and forgetting) of spectators. While audiences have been deemed an overlooked theme in existing circus historiography, their research presents specific challenges, among them, grappling with the difficulty of capturing audience members’ responses to live performance. Researching spectators’ memories therefore demands methodological considerations exploring what Helen Freshwater calls “creative and indirect” approaches in the archives. The Joop Frankvoort-van der Meer fellowship will allow Anna to explore methods expansively within the Best, Linssen, Friedländer, Baudert, Hartmans, Letellier, Kiveron, van Vliet, Stapert, and Diemont collections. This research period will also enable her to interview stakeholders connected to various collections and to examine the notion of a collector as a type of both performer and spectator.
Fellow
Anna Vigeland works and researches across overlapping interests in circus histories, memory, performance-making, and translation. Through her PhD-in-progress at Concordia University in Montreal, she is currently researching circus spectators' memories, supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture. A graduate of Montreal’s National Circus School, she spent close to twenty years in the circus field before starting her doctoral program, working as a performer and later as a choreographer, dramaturgy collaborator, cultural worker, and translator.