Tag: Commission

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Redefining Form

Photo of live circus-theatre production What The Circus?. The image shows a young black man with dreadlocks, wearing a black and gold sparkly dress, and a young white woman with shoulder length blond hair, who is wearing sunglasses, a suit jacket, tie and slightly unbuttoned shirt. He is leaning towards her cupping his hand as if to whisper something into her ear. She is holding a microphone and her mouth is slightly open as if she is saying something. Both performers are looking forward into the camera.

I once received an email from the Artistic Director of a circus venue, offering a ‘residency’ so that we, myself and my company, could – with his help – ‘fix’ our show and make it more ‘circusy’.

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Stav Meishar

Legacies

A graphite pencil sketch on a white background by bristol artist Gail Reid. The scene is the aftermath of Colston's statue being pulled down. Central is the ornate stone and bronze plinth on which the statue stood. On it now stands a young black female demonstrator, with shoulder length hair who is looking out with one fist raised in the air. At the bottom of the plinth placards are displayed, leaning in a pile. One depicts a stenciled raised fist, others read ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Silence is violence’, and another lists 20+ names of young black people who died in the custody of UK police. In the background disappearing out of frame, we can see the overturned statue of colston.

As a circus-theatre artist whose work is based on historical figures, I think celebrating lineage is important.

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Simone

Imagining UTOPIAN

A dark photograph of three artists covered in green, pink and blue UV paint. They are seated on a stage in a circle, at the left Ruby a white tall female with short hair is seated reaching out for Duane with Symoné's hand caressing her face. In the middle Symoné, a black female, is staring into Duane's eyes with his hand on her chin staring back. To the right, Duane, a non-binary person, has their back turned facing Symoné.
Credit Jemima Yong

I sit near a 20ft bonfire, neon lights are slowly breathing in the distance and the faded sound of liquid drum and bass vibrates through the air.

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Mish Weaver

Streams of Influence

A hand drawn, interlinking web-like diagram connecting different circus artists, companies, places, circus schools, venues and shows.

Streams of Influence involves slowing everything down. Having interviewed practitioners of her generation about their creative journeys, Mish slowed it down by drawing mind maps of the conversations and reflecting on what influenced them at different stages, looking at differences and similarities.

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Katharine Kavanagh

Getting Rid of The Circus

Figure 1. Mutually influencing and mediating structures of the performing arts system. Adapted from Van Maanen (2002:180)

The language we use isn’t purely formal. It constitutes our perspective of the world. It influences the way we think (Sinha, 2017). Consider the difference between ‘The Circus’ and ‘Circus’.

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Francesca Hyde

Monster

Three human bodies, with white and brown skin, are seemingly merged together, to become a “ball” of different heads and limbs suspended approximately two feet above the ground. You can not see the faces on the individual performers, they appear to exist as one entity. The wall behind is made of sand coloured bricks and the floor is grey, and has a large crack pictured in the foreground of the image.

Greetings, allow me to introduce myself. I am the artistic director of Collectif and then… We make contemporary performances and installations together which draw on our various circus practices.

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Ziggy Slingsby

Lucy

A black ink drawing of a human pelvis bone.

Lucy is a skeleton, female, 3.2 million years old and belongs to a species known as Australopithecus Afarensis. She was discovered in Ethiopia, 1974 and the study of her bones has advanced understanding of human evolution.