From technical movement to artistic gesture: the trampoline, training support for propulsion

The manual reports on the exchanges on the pedagogical orientations outlined by participants during round tables dedicated to the subject of trampoline.

It is also based on examples of pedagogical practices collected during series of individual interviews conducted by the associate author Agathe Dumont, the pedagogical coordinator Arnaud Thomas, with the speakers and participants, on exercises proposed by some of them, as well as complementary tools borrowed from the fields of sports sciences, other arts, history, aesthetics, or the social sciences.

The first part of the manual focuses on observing the different stages, possible transfers and pedagogical issues in the learning of propulsion disciplines. The second part proposes to look at the artistic performance of the technical movement. In line with the session's workshops, each notion is explained, illustrated with examples and enriched by reading suggestions or enlightened by other ways of seeing, such as a toolbox from which everyone can draw ideas or resources.

Teachers and students had expressed the need to have tools that mirror the pedagogical and artistic evolutions, which are no longer based only on oral transmission, but also to have strong bibliographical references and a conceptual contribution for more reflection and research. However, the manual exceeds these expectations since it makes it possible to formalize the practices of today professionals and to transmit them. The proposals are transferable from one apparatus and practice to another and allow a cross-disciplinary reflection on aerial skills or, more broadly, on the way circus arts are constantly tackling the issues and difficulties of vertical work, weight and gravity.