Circus of the future

Roncalli circus

Natias Neutert as an air pump flautist

Zirkus der Zukunft (art) is the title for a mixture of circus and art that Hamburg-based artist Natias Neutert created and sketched out in a full-page essay for Die Zeit in 1984 .

origin

The concept of a new circus aesthetic arose from intensive theoretical preoccupation with the Roncalli circus , which Neutert saw too much nostalgic at the time and therefore subjected it to the following criticism:

Criticism of the traditional

On the occasion of Roncalli's “Journey to the Rainbow”, the question arose for him whether such a journey should only lead into the past? Isn't it about developing a new type of circus art? Neutert's criticism was aimed directly at Bernhard Paul and came down to the following: Is it a trick or a trick that a director no longer wants to leave the monotonous line of the classic-nostalgic? As soon as he belongs to the traveling people, he is already a sedentary person who loses the desire for artistic risk, for intellectual adventure.

Vision of a contemporary circus

The idea of a circus of our time, as Neutert freely admits at the time, has no other tent, building or housing than my skull. In it, Pello, the cephalopod, is haunted as a motor homunculus , Laurie Anderson plays the violin with her neon arc in ever more shrill ecstasy, and Joseph Beuys also sings with the coyote with whom he competes in his New York action from 'creature to creature' had made friends. And while I'm doing the dancing bear mime and my somersault on the school globe, John Cage keeps mumbling his magic spell: “For the birds - not for the cages.” So a concept that draws the line between “E (rnst)” and “U (nterhaltung) ”wants to dissolve through an avant-garde place of pleasure, where jugglers as well as performers , artists and action artists appear.

reception

Three years later, André Heller , of whom it is said in the FAZ that he "borrows from every available intellectual capital", took up the basic idea. In 1987 he staged the Luna Luna amusement park in Hamburg , "meeting the quality requirements of art connoisseurs (d) as well as the entertainment needs of ordinary people."

literature

Natias Neutert : Where is the circus? - Somewhere else!
André Heller : Luna Luna . Made possible by Neue Revue, photographically documented by Sabine Sarnitz, essay by Hilde Spiel, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-00047-1

Individual evidence

↑ Cf. Natias Neutert: Where is the circus? - Somewhere else! in Die Zeit No. 47, November 16, 1984, p. 58.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Natias Neutert: Where is the circus? - Somewhere else! In: DIE ZEIT No. 47/1984. November 16, 1984, p. 58 , accessed December 25, 2013 .
↑ ^a ^b To the higher honor of the imagination. In: Spiegel 19/1987. May 4, 1987, pp. 236–245 , accessed December 25, 2013 .

[1] Cf. Natias Neutert: Where is the circus? - Somewhere else! in Die Zeit No. 47, November 16, 1984, p. 58.

[neutert-2] Natias Neutert: Where is the circus? - Somewhere else! In: DIE ZEIT No. 47/1984. November 16, 1984, p. 58 , accessed December 25, 2013 .

[spiegel_8719-3] To the higher honor of the imagination. In: Spiegel 19/1987. May 4, 1987, pp. 236–245 , accessed December 25, 2013 .