In January 2022 I was invited to be a participant in a yearlong collaboration with Cie Equinoctis to discuss what it might mean to create new modes of performances that would (re)valorize non-human animals in contemporary circus. My main mission was thereby to critically engage with a simultaneously naive and informed perspective. Outside this project, I am a dramaturge and circus scholar, trained in philosophy, literature, performance, and cultural studies. In my dissertation, I developed a semiotic method for the analysis of contemporary circus performances. My postdoctoral research is dedicated to the role of objects and apparatuses in circus performances in the context of the non-human turn. I have, however, never worked with animals onstage. Living in the city center of Brussels, I am rarely in contact with species other than human beings. Based on this background, I was invited to join the Cie Equinoctis while training, living, and performing at ‘La Bonnette’, the company’s permaculture space and home since the fall of 2021, with their fellow non-human animal performers: horses.
