[…] the self-identification as animal lovers that we perform every day in our homes (and on Sundays when we drag the kids around the zoo) is part of a paper-thin but rock-hard veneer on an animal culture of staggering violence and exploitation ✿. (Chaudhuri 2017: ‘(De)facing the animal’)
At dusk, an audience is guided through a park, Le Jard Anglais in Chalons-en-Champagne, to the scene where Dresse-toi (2018) by Cie Equinoctis is being performed. In the center there is a ring that is divided into several areas: a ring curb, an inner ring made of sawdust, a ring of grass, and a sawdust circle, which immediately frames the performance’s setting: a circus and riding show. In the background, three horses, two grays and a bay are leashed in front of a large white canvas. Surrounded by trees, the scenery is illuminated by various points on the ring curb and by three spotlights from above, casting the shadow of the horses on the canvas. A middle-aged white man dressed in a gray suit and white t-shirt, wearing a plastic neck brace filled with apples, stands between the horses. While the audience is being seated around the ring, they are invited to witness a joyful and intimate play between a brown horse, fitted with reins, and a dark-skinned woman, who is wearing a short black dress and a long red scarf blindfolding her eyes. Barefoot, she runs in circles around the ring, while her non-human animal co-performer follows her movements and instructions. In the center of the ring, the horse lays down, allowing his blinded co-performer to climb onto his back and start the presentation of a diversity of horse gaits.
After each successful trick, the human and non-human animal share an apple ✿. The man dressed in the gray suit enters the ring, reminiscent of the traditional circus ringmaster:
Bonne soir, Ladies and Gentlemen. Nous sommes la Cie Equinoctis […] Je suppose que vous aimez bien les animaux. Je veux commencer ce spectacle avec un jeu sur la confidence entre nous, les êtres humains, et les animaux. Je cherche une assistante pour partager un moment. (Dresse-toi, 2018)
Dresse-toi (2018) is a performance created and performed by the French Company Cie Equinoctis, which was initiated by Sabrina Sow in 2006 and focuses on equestrian arts as its main circus discipline. Three human performers (Sabrina Sow as equestrian artist, Jakob Vandenburgh as moderator, Victoria Belen Martinez — who pretends to be an audience member/baronne, model, and acrobat selected from the public) and four non-human animals (the horses Bouboule, Cynique, Babouchka, and Blossom) perform in the ring. A diversity of categories of equestrian acts are presented in the performance, namely, the high school (haute école) act, ‘a style of riding originating in the schools of classical equitation, in which a ridden horse executes complex steps. A contemporary descendant is competitive dressage’ (Baston 2021: 123); the liberty act, ‘unridden horses perform complex patterned movements cued by a human performer’ (Baston 2021: 123); Roman riding, ‘a solo performer rides two (or more) horses standing upright on their backs’ (Baston 2021: 124), and vaulting, ‘a fast-paced act in which the performer runs alongside the horse, vaulting over it and performing tricks’ (Baston 2021: 124). Like the company’s other works, the performance addresses the question of our relations with other beings — be they human or non-human.
Dresse-toi starts as a family show, presenting a beautiful, playful relationship based on mutual trust and sensitivity between humans and non-human animals. The human performer’s bare feet and blindness underline her physical vulnerability, which is heightened by the rigor of the horses’ hooves and the use of a red scarf. The dark, short dress showing much of her brown skin refers to the brown fur of the horse, approximating the appearance of the human and non-human animal performers; sharing an apple makes the two equals. As the sun sets, the performance increasingly becomes a critical commentary on contemporary society. The objective is to confront the discrepancies between human ‘self-identification as animal-lovers’ and the ‘animal culture of staggering violence and exploitation’ (Chaudhuri 2017: ‘(De)facing the Animal’), which is described in the opening quotation of this text.
Through the presentation of common cultural practices involving animals, the non-human animal is anthropomorphized and the human animal is zoomorphized. The parallels between human and non-human animals and the objectification of human and non-human animals are emblematic of the problematic nature of contemporary human and non-human animal relations. This chapter discloses the dramaturgic strategies used in Dresse-toi to achieve a better understanding of the specific staging of our contemporary relationship to non-human animals. What does it mean to create new modes of circus performances that would (re)valorize the animal?
