This is an Arts Council England London office overview of the Circus sector in London at the moment by Chenine Bhathena, Circus and Street Arts Officer.
Youth Circus: Albert & Friends Instant Circus, London Youth Circus, Croydon Youth Circus
Training/Apprenticeships/Emerging Artists: Circus Space, A&FIC, Roundhouse, Shunt
Festivals: LIMF, Circus Front (biennial), London International Youth Circus Festival (biennial)
Strategic Producers: Crying Out Loud, Roundhouse Trainee Producer
Resources: Circus Space, The Hangar, Shunt.
Networks: CityCirc – London-wide venues
RFOs: Company FZ, Mimbre, Ockham’s Razor, Upswing Aerial, Crying Out Loud, Circus Space, Albert & Friends Instant Circus, Roundhouse.
Ockham's Razor perform Arc. Photo by Nik Mackey
GFA’s include Rose English, Giselle Edwards, Bassline Circus, Danny Schlesinger, Empress Stah, Insect Circus, Layla Marlin, Angela De Castro/CCP, GenCo, Amy Howard, Paschale Straiton, Punto Cero, Matt Churchill Popcorn Club, Gandini Juggling, Scarabeus, Wrong Size, Zippos, Sugarbeast Circus, Tim Lenkiewicz, So and So Circus, Honk Project
Other London based Producers: London Artists Projects, Turtle Key, Di Robson, Leila Jones, Layla Marlin, Robin Collings, Kate Hartoch, Adrian Berry, Kerry Veitch, Matt Churchill, Penny Mayes, Shabina Aslam, GenCo
CIRCUS STRENGTHS IN LONDON:
Potential to reach broad, diverse, universal audiences of different ages - music theatre/dance/young people/families/theatre/opera/live art
Strong on participatory benefits - Meet Taking Part Agenda fully
Opportunity for working with deaf and disabled audiences, artists and participants Strong marketing opps
Good cross art form artistic partnerships
Creating new performance vocabularies
Strong international flavour to UK work
Strong International partnerships developed between UK and Europe, travels well
Some leading companies developing strong work
Desire, passion and commitment
Infrastructure in place
Thriving and politically active commercial sector
Issues in sector:
Strengthen youth provision, training, skills and professional development
Lack of trained directors, thus developing quality of work
Greater investment needed for artists (R&D, Management support, Showcasing, networking opps, CPD etc) - Expensive to build/make/create/rehears/tour circus shows due to technical personnel and physical nature of activity
Greater investment needed for festivals/producers/infrastructure
Greater buy in from wider theatre/festivals sector – producing houses/companies and programmers - Need to do some work with technical staff at venues to develop greater understanding of how to put a show on/to make it happen. Not all venues suitable, but generally it can be done
Broader network of suitable creation/rehearsal space
More Arts Admin type Agency structures to support emerging artists with managing/planning etc.
Support in diversifying the work
Lack of unity across sector, between providers, artists and with commercial circus proprietors
Concerns:
Expectation vs investment
Increasing quality of the artistic work and greater opportunity for curated experimentation and development
Pressure of 2012 and regeneration for the sector to deliver with weaker infrastructure – capacity building and strengthening infrastructure (national hubs, greater unity)
Increasing profile of the work and encouraging greater critical debate
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