Performing horses

Horses on stage between the 19th and 20th centuries

Abstract

Animals, especially horses, as full-fledged performer. The essay is a historical excursus that starts from the invention of the hippodrama in London in the eighte- enth century and then focuses on two twentieth-century examples. One in France, the Zingaro theater of Bartabas, mixed team of men and horses. The other, an Italian one, the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio with its uncanny appearances of non-humans. The research is to be placed in the line of Animal Studies which assert the roles that animals have played in human history and therefore also in the performing arts.