Call For Papers
“FOUR-FOOTED ACTORS: LIVE ANIMALS ON THE STAGE”
University of Valencia, Spain
12-14 December 2012
Writing in 1899, Frederick Dolman argued in an article titled “Four-Footed
Actors: About Some Well-Known Animals that Appear in the London and Provincial
Stage” that the “growth of variety theatres and the decay of comic songs” had
developed in “several kinds of diversion, not the least of which is furnished by the art of
the animal-trainer” (The English Illustrated Magazine, Sep. 1899, 192, p. 521). Dolman
was describing the large-scale entertainments starring animals that had taken over
traditional spectator recreations for the last century in a manner not unlike the success
of music-halls and professional sport. In this sense, Lord George Sanger’s zoological
pantomimes best reflected the spirit of the new age and the advent of the
commercialisation of leisure. As recalled by himself, the cast in the production of
Gulliver’s Travels included “three hundred girls, two hundred men, two hundred
children, thirteen elephants, nine camels, and fifty-two horses, in addition to ostriches,
emus, pelicans, deer of all kinds, kangaroos, Indian buffaloes, Brahmin bulls, and (…)
two living lions led by the collar and chain into the centre of the group”.
Indeed, popular amusements have featured animals since antiquity, as shown by
wild animal fights (venationes and bestiarii) and ritual slaughters (hecatombs) in Greek
and Roman amphitheatres. Similarly, trained animal performances peppered medieval
Europe. A newspaper article published in The Saturday Magazine in 1839 described a
12th-century Anglo-Saxon manuscript portraying a joculator with his pipe and tabor,
accompanied by a dancing bear and dogs and even a cock on stilts. The author sadly
deplored the spread of such activities amongst civilized societies and regretted the
audience’s infatuation with them. “What is the feeling that prompts men to run after
exhibitions of this kind? It is an admiration of the skill displayed by the animal, or that
displayed by the owner in teaching the animal, or merely a love for the grotesque and
marvellous let it be shown in what way it may?” (The Saturday Magazine, April 27,
1839). Dogs, horses, pigs, goats, cocks, bears, monkeys and “quadrupeds of all sorts
and sizes” frequently performed in Europe. Memorable shows include Astley’s
equestrian drama or the antics of Nicolet’s monkey Turco in Paris, who was capable of
imitating the Comédie-Française actor Molé. Further extravagances like tightrope
dancing canaries, horse-riding oxen, card-playing deer, soldier-marching little birds,
pigs solving mathematical puzzles, boxing kangaroos, and dogs setting-off cannons,
amongst many other animaux savants shows, delighted every kind of audience. As early
as 1572, Thomas Cartwright mockingly declared in his admonition to Parliament
against the use of the Common Prayer that “if there be a bull or a bear to be baited in
the afternoon, or a jackanapes to ride on horseback, the minister hurries the service over
in a shameful manner, in order to be present at the show” (The Saturday Magazine,
April 27, 1839).
The industrialisation of public spectacle turned classic animal performances into
monumental, exotic shows, ranging from grand opera played on horseback to the vivid
representation of a city siege with dogs. Not until the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries did the drama witness such an eclosion of hybrid theatrical forms in which
live animals acquired an essential part in the syntactic, thematic and dynamic
development of the play.
The aim of this conference is to explore the role of live animals on the stage,
from the early modern era to the present time. Papers dealing with visual or textual
representations of performing animals, typologies of animals in the theatre, the
hybridisation of the drama with the circus, the zoo and the cinema, as well as the
semiotic transfer of animal roles from the text to the stage are particularly welcome.
Corollary topics may also include, but are not limited to:
-Animals and the birth of the mass-entertainment industry
-Animals and melodrama
-Animals and pantomime
-Educability and animal training for the stage
-Sentience and animals as moral beings
-Anthropocentrism over non-human others
-Animal cruelty and speciesism on the stage
-Acting animals and spirituality
-Animal impersonators
-Hygiene and public safety measures and regulations in playhouses
-Stage mimicry
-Animal welfare and national identity
-Animal acting and stage scenery
-Performing animals and music
-Animals on the stage and Darwinism
-Domestic vs wild animals on the stage
-Animals on the stage and the animal rights movement (19th-20th centuries)
-Animal and gender roles on the stage
Contributions:
Contributions are sought from researchers at any stage of their careers. Abstracts (300
words) in English or Spanish for 25-minute papers should be sent along with a short
biographical note by 1 June 2012 to Ignacio.Ramos@uv.es
Acceptance will be notified no later than July 2012.
Conference fees and registration:
Speakers: 60 euros
Attendees: 20 euros
Organising committee:
Department of French & Italian Philology
Department of English & German Philology