Marie-Andree Robitaille’s Public defence

The doctoral artistic research project "Circus as Practices of Hope: A Philosophy of Circus" by Marie-Andree Robitaille has been published in DiVA and Research Catalogue on 29 April, 2024. 

Link to DiVA 
Link to Research Catalogue

Opponent: 
Karen Fricker   

Committee: 
Rick Dolphijn
Ingri Midgard Fiksdal
Alexander Vantournhout
Kent Olofsson (substitute)

Main supervisor: 
Juliette Mapp

Supervisor:
Trond Lossius

Schedule:
13:30 – Welcome by Alisan Funk, head of subject area Circus, and Cecilia Roos, chair of the public defence
13:40 – Presentation by the respondent.
14:00 – Summary of the doctoral project by the opponent. 
14:20 – Questions and conversation between opponent and respondent. 
15:00 – Pause
15:30 – Questions from the committee
- Questions from the audience
- Break for the audience as the examining committee deliberates
- The committee announces the results

In case you need accessibility assistance please contact: marie-andre.robitaille@uniarts.se
 

BIO's

Candidate: Marie-Andrée Robitaille
Marie-Andrée Robitaille is a multidisciplinary circus artist, pedagogue and researcher. She studied in human sciences while training as a dancer at École de Danse de Québec and as a circus artist at the National Circus School in Montréal, Canada. Since 1998, Marie-Andrée has worked as a performer, choreographer, director, pedagogue and producer notably with Cirkus Cirkör and with various international artistic projects. Between 2007-2009, she was a talent scout at Cirque du Soleil casting team. From 2009 to 2018, she was an assistant professor of circus and the artistic leader and head of the bachelor’s degree programme in circus at Stockholm University of the Arts SKH in Sweden (formerly DOCH). At SKH, she conducted a series of artistic research: Gynoïdes Project, on the representation and agency of women in circus; Sound of Circus, on modes of sonic interaction; Hidden Circus, on sensing practices. Her research interests encompass circus epistemic potential, choreography, composition, performative and kinetic new materialisms, posthuman ethics, embodiment, and transdisciplinarity. In her doctoral project, Circus as Practices of Hope: A Philosophy of Circus, she explored circus specificities and their relevance for navigating and steering the current planetary paradigm shift. Marie-Andrée Robitaille is the artistic leader at CirkusPerspektiv a Stockholm-based circus company active in the production of experimental, performative, and choreographic circus artistic works. CirkusPerspektiv is dedicated to the development of contemporary circus in Sweden and internationally. 

Opponent: Karen Fricker 
Karen Fricker is an adjunct professor of dramatic arts at Brock University, write about theater for the Toronto Star, and is editorial advisor at Intermission magazine. With Charles R. Batson she is co-founder of the Circus and its Others research project. She co-edited a special double issue of the peer-reviewed journal Performance Matters (4, 1-2, 2018) on Circus and its Others, and her writing about circus has appeared in edited volumes published by Cambridge University Press and McGill-Queen’s University Press. Her monograph The Original Stage Productions of Robert Lepage: Making Theatre Global won the Canadian Association of Theatre Research’s Ann Saddlemyer Award for the best book on a Canadian subject in 2021-22. She has won awards for her teaching at Brock University; McGill University; and Royal Holloway, University of London. Karen is involved in a number of projects around new approaches to theatre criticism training, including the IBPOC Critics Lab (a collaboration between the Stratford Festival and Intermission magazine); Seeding the Future (a collaboration between CBC Arts, Obsidian Theatre, Brock University, and York University); Taking on the World (a collaboration between Soulpepper Theatre and Intermission magazine); and Youth Theatre Ireland’s Young Critics program. She is currently designing an online, open-source equitable theatre criticism training course, a project funded by eCampus Ontario.
 

Committee: 

Rick Dolphijn
Dr. Rick Dolphijn is an associate professor at Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, with an interest in transdisciplinary research at large. He published widely on continental philosophy (Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres) and the contemporary arts. He studies posthumanism, new materialism, material culture (food studies), and ecology. He coordinates the Humanities Honours Program, is involved in interfaculty cooperation concerning Community Based Research, Open Cities, and COVID-19. Since 2015 he runs an undergraduate exchange with the University of Hong Kong (themed "The More-Than-Human City"), a graduate exchange (themed "The Lives of the Delta") commenced in 2021. Rick Dolphijn is an Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong (2017-2023) and a Visiting Professor at the University of Barcelona (2019/2020). His books include Foodscapes  (Eburon/University of Chicago Press 2004), New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies (Open Humanities Press 2012, with Iris van der Tuin). His academic work has appeared in journals like Continental Philosophy Review, Angelaki, Rhizomes, Collapse, and Deleuze Studies. He edited (with Rosi Braidotti) This Deleuzian Century: Art, Activism, Life (Brill/Rodopi 2014/5) and Philosophy after Nature (2017), and Michel Serres and the Crises of the Contemporary (Bloomsbury Academic 2019/20). His monography, The Philosophy of Matter: a Meditation, appeared with Bloomsbury Academic in 2021, and was published as a trade book in Dutch (Filosofie van de Materie, Noordboek) in 2022. He just published Deleuze and Guattari and Fascism, Edinburgh University Press 2022. He is a PI in two international research projects: Food2Gather (HERA funded 2019-2022) and IMAGINE (Norwegian Research Council 2021-2024).

Ingri Midgard Fiksdal
Ingri Midgard Fiksdal is a choreographer based in Oslo, Norway. She holds a PhD in artistic research from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts titled Affective Choreographies (2019). Ingri’s work on affect has in recent years taken her into discourses on perspective and privilege. She is currently working on a number of projects that research the posthuman and with this hegemonies of knowledge and power. Here, choreography is understood as a format of speculative fiction that can propose complex and manyfold understandings of body, gender, species, ethnicity, knowledge and history. Ingri is concerned with how practice and theory are entangled in her work in a way where neither is perceived as anterior to the other. Since 2020, Ingri has been an Affiliated Artistic Researcher  with CoFUTURES at the University of Oslo (www.cofutures.org). The CoFUTURES group led by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay researches global futurisms from non-anglophone traditions. Ingri’s work has in recent years been performed at Obscene Festival in Seoul, Homo Novus in Riga, Kunstenfestival in Brussels, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Santarcangelo festival, Beijing Contemporary Dance Festival, Sommerszene in Salzburg, Reykjavík Art Museum, brut-Wien, Teatro di Roma, Harbourfront Centre Toronto, Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, BUDA Kortrijk, Tanzhaus NRW in Dusseldorf and Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, alongside extensive touring in Norway. Ingri´s work is supported by Fri scenekunst – kunstnerskap from Arts and Culture Norway.

Alexander Vantournhout
Alexander Vantournhout (Brussels, 1989) studied cyr wheel and juggling at ESAC (Ecole Supérieure des Arts du Cirque) and contemporary dance at P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels.Alexander Vantournhout's physical language bears the influences of a varied education and working circumstances. However, it is marked by two constants: his search for the creative and kinetic potential in physical limitation, and the relationship or boundary between performer and object. 2014 marked the premiere of his first piece, Caprices, a choreographic solo set to the music of Sciarrino. Aneckxander (2015), a second solo, co-created with Bauke Lievens, won the CircusNext Prize, as well as the Young Theatre Prize and the Audience Prize at Theater Aan Zee (Ostend, 2015) and the Aerowaves network. His first duet Raphael (2017) was also co-created with Bauke Lievens. In 2018, he created La Rose en Céramique, and in 2019 SCREWS. With Through the Grapevine (2020), the body is reintroduced in a very pure way and the performance dives into the creative and kinetic potential of physical limitations, a theme that is reflected throughout Alexander Vantournhout's work. In Contre-jour (2021) Alexander Vantournhout takes on the role of choreographer for the first time and gives the floor to a group of five performers from various backgrounds: dance, musical, theatre, circus, etc. In 2022 Alexander Vantournhout returns solo on stage with VanThorhout. Alexander is the laureate for the Flemish government award's Ultima Performing Arts 2023 with the following mention "The work of Alexander Vantournhout and his company not standing transcends the boundaries of disciplines and creates a unique and hybrid movement language. It is an ode to physical intelligence and the consistent dedication it requires. It is masterful balance art that sharpens all your senses."

Kent Olofsson (substitute)
Kent Olofsson is a composer and an artist in the field of performing arts with an extensive artistic output that spans a broad range of genres, ensemble types, art forms and contexts including music for orchestra, chamber music, electronic music, theatre, dance performances, opera, radiophonic art, film, and rock music. 

Main supervisor: Juliette Mapp
Juliette Mapp is a dancer, choreographer, and curator, currently based in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, U.S.A. She is a professor of choreography at SKH and assistant professor of dance practices at The Eugene Lang School of Liberal Arts at The New School in New York City. Juliette has written about her teaching, performing, and choreographic practices in the Performing Arts Journal, Contact Quarterly, the Movement Research Performance Journal, and the online journal SARMA. She has received two New York Dance and Performance, i.e., “Bessie” Awards. Arts Journal, Contact Quarterly, the Movement Research Performance Journal, and the online journal SARMA. She has received two New York Dance and Performance, i.e., “Bessie” Awards.

Supervisor:
Trond Lossius
Trond Lossius explores relationships between sound, place, and space through field recordings, audio-visual installations, and collaborative projects that span different disciplines. He uses surround (Ambisonic) microphones to capture the essence of places rather than just the sounds, with a focus on suburban sound environments. Lossius also develops open-source software for spatial audio and real-time media to support his projects, and his research on sound and music computing has been published in international conferences and journals. He holds a PhD in artistic research from the Academy of Fine Art, Bergen National Academy of the Arts, and has previously studied music composition at the Grieg Academy as well as geophysics at the MA level. Currently, he serves as a professor and Head of PhD at The Norwegian Film School, Inland University of Applied Sciences, and as professor II at The Grieg Academy, The University of Bergen. Trond has previously held the position of Head of Research at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. He has previously held the position of Head of Research at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.