An associate professor in Concordia’s Department of English and Département d’études françaises, he was recently named scholar-in-residence at the National Circus School. He also collaborates with SSHRC Industrial Research Chair for Colleges in Circus Arts Patrice Aubertin at the same institution. Leroux’s research on the Cirque du Soleil has taken him to Las Vegas, Nevada, a city he’s come to see as a “metonymy for hyper-America”; this year, he’s heading to Ecuador to study its Social Circus movement.
On Wednesday, March 12, Leroux and Lyn Heward — former director of creation at the Cirque du Soleil — will take part in “The Academics of Circus,” a conversational exploration of the artistic and commercial aspects of creativity. This second event in Concordia’s Thinking Out Loud series will be moderated by Sophie Cousineau, The Globe and Mail’s chief Quebec correspondent.
In anticipation of the talk, we asked Leroux to describe his favourite acts.