ET ZEBRASTRIBET CIRKUSNUMMER: Om latterens scenarium

Abstract

Helle Ploug Hansen: A Zebra-Striped

Circus Performance. The Scenario of

Laughter

This article looks at humour and laughter as

a complex social and cultural phenomenon.

It is based on a description of a circus

performance in Copenhagen in which a

plastic zebra, after having read a zebrastriped

book, lay down on the scene in the

performance hall. The performance is first

analysed as a parody of a traditional circus

performance and as an absurd form of

humour. The article then focuses on laughter

as a spontaneous answer from the body to an

unknown and unpredictable phenomenon.

Finally Bateson’s theory of communication

is introduced in order to understand humour

and laughter as a meta-communicative

manifestation, that comments upon and

challenges the social order.