L’Écocirque: 100% Human Circus – Interview with André-Joseph Bouglione, Part 2 of 3

L’Écocirque: André-Joseph Bouglione is proud to present its first Holographic Animal. This bear is entirely digital; no animal was used for the realization of this hologram. 100% digital This polar bear, entirely digital, will perform on L’Écocirque’s stage and interact with the other artists, 100% Human. “Actually, for me the problem with abuse is that it does exist. But that’s not the point. No matter how serious the matter is, the real issue is the captivity and exploitation of endangered animals. Because otherwise, if we talk about abuse, we can say: ‘Well, my animals are being treated well. Therefore, I can keep them and continue on like before.’ Whereas they truly belong in the wild. Actually, the real problem, our real problem today is that our activity is obsolete. It belongs to another age, to another era. It’s never right to put animals in cages, especially in trailers, to roam them through Europe, to exhibit to people who have never seen them. Today, with all the means at our disposal, we no longer need to go to the circus at the supermarket’s parking lot to see animals on tar pavement and sometimes in conditions that do not justify their being exhibited to the public.” “We re-homed them. There were a few I couldn’t re-home. It’s more complicated to re-home pets, because they could end up in a slaughterhouse. And I was very afraid of that.” “I think it will benefit them (people) to see an example of a traditional circus renewed, with the same audience as the circus we had before, but without animals. Even amongst the audiences attending traditional animal circuses, there are people eager to watch a performance, to take the children to see real clowns, real trapeze artists, a true circus performance all the while free of any ill feeling about it. Well, these people, they do love the traditional circus! But there are a lot of them who feel uncomfortable today with animals being exhibited. So, my concern wasn’t the public when I decided to stop presenting animals, but I think that now is the right time to do so.”