Our diverse range of work includes the UK’s only BA Hons degree in Circus Arts, a structured progressive training programme for under 18s and professional development opportunities for aspiring and established performers. Adults and young people can take part in a range of recreational classes and we provide workshops and away days for the business community.
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A Strange Equation - R&D supported by Circus Space Lab:Time.
A strange equation is a collaboration between Ziggy Slingsby, a rope performer and Jasmin Perrow a choreographer. Discovering that both their grandfathers were miners inspired the idea to create an aerial show that reflects the experience of working underground through physical movement.
“As an aerial rope performer I work with height: moving up and down through a tall but narrow vertical space. My grandfather was a miner and on a subconscious level, the image of going underground has influenced my imagination and perceptions of aerial work.” Ziggy Slingsby http://astrangeequation.wordpress.com/
Circus Space has joined with four partner organisations to award this year’s Circus Propeller Prize to Circus Space graduate Arron Sparks for his company Circus Geeks and their new production Beta Testing
The Propeller Prize is a partnership between the Roundhouse, Circus Space, Jacksons Lane, Jerwood, Seachange Arts and Le Brèche in Cherbourg. The prize offers a year of support towards the creation of a new circus production that will premiere at the Roundhouse’s CircusFest in 2014.
Beta Testing will be a fun and intelligent piece that brings together juggling, yoyo, TED talks, Rube Goldberg contraptions and text to explore the jugger’s obsession with perfection and failure. The company behind the production, Circus Geeks, is the brain child of Arron Sparks who started it initially as a blog to house all the videos of crazy stuff he found when exploring the internet.
We’re particularly delighted by Arron’s success not only because he’s a Circus Space graduate but because the early stage development of Beta Testing has benefited from Circus Space’s Lab:time which provided him with space and small amounts of seed funding.
We’ll keep you updated on Arron’s progress over the forthcoming year.
Footage of Lab:time recipient Hege Eriksdatter Østefjells’ work in progress ‘OCTO’. Hege received Lab:time funding to research the use of water hoses as aerial equipment.
Lab:time - Catrin Osborne - Osborne and What
Research and Development for Running with Scissors
“The main reason for the R & D taking place was to find out where the language of circus would be used in Running With Scissors and if it made sense for circus to be part of it.
I was excited by the results of Lab:time, and by some of the performers I had the opportunity to begin to work with. Some of the scenes we looked at had real potential to use circus to help tell the story and portray the character’s inner emotions. It was invaluable to have a rigger there to try out ideas using circus safely and quickly as part of the devising process.” - Catrin Osborne
Jon Udry - Lab:time day 3
For my labtime at Circus Space, I was given 1 week in the Creation Studio to explore the creative side of juggling using string, elastic and balloons. With the help of Emily Dixon, Arron Sparks, Sam Veale, Ian Marchant, Frederike Gerstner and Owen Reynolds we made some very interesting discoveries.
Jon Udry - Lab:time day 2
For my labtime at Circus Space, I was given 1 week in the Creation Studio to explore the creative side of juggling using string, elastic and balloons. With the help of Emily Dixon, Arron Sparks, Sam Veale, Ian Marchant, Frederike Gerstner and Owen Reynolds we made some very interesting discoveries.
Jon Udry - Lab:time day 1
For my labtime at Circus Space, I was given 1 week in the Creation Studio to explore the creative side of juggling using string, elastic and balloons. With the help of Emily Dixon, Arron Sparks, Sam Veale, Ian Marchant, Frederike Gerstner and Owen Reynolds we made some very interesting discoveries.
Aerial Umbrella – Daniel Gonçalves
Daniel was a recipient of Circus Space’s Lab:time funding to experiment with the use of an umbrella as a circus object.
His original application stated:
“I want to use an Umbrella as a Circus Object because I think it will be easier to cross circus techniques with theatre. Being an everyday object it’s easier to place the object in a situation so that a character can relate to it and therefore the audience can relate to it.”
If you’re interested in experimenting with circus, applications are currently open for Lab:time funding, find out more
Liz Wickham tells us about her Lab:time session. Find out more about Lab:time funding
My Lab:time consisted of 2 inspiring days in the creation studio with my friend and fellow artist Francesca Hyde. We experimented with my new prop and explored my ideas for bringing a forces based physics element to a show. The new prop is a spreader bar that can be built up to various lengths for rigging a cloud to a single point with a swivel.
We discovered that the wide version of the prop was much more imposing and naturally theatrical than the narrow case. The latter was more elegant. We found many ways to use both props, new drops, ways of climbing, getting onto the bar at the top, using the whole range of the apparatus. There was also some strange unexpected behaviour when we played with the spin. A lot of food for thought.
For the physics we had a general chat about my ideas so far and then tried a few theatre exercises with the prop. I spoke about the physics I would like to present while Fran listened and asked questions, we did this exercise both while I moved on the prop and Fran watched and vice versa. I found these exercises very helpful in finding a way forward with the physics. I now have two clear paths to pursue for the future and when I’m ready intend to apply for more funding to make a show.
Happy Company!.. Rehearsals at the Creation Studio at Circus Space for Birdy which will be showing at Jacksons Lane theatre next week.
The Mechanical Animal Corporation received Lab:time funding from Circus Space earlier this year:
“Experimenting with The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert, we aimed to explore the dense religious visions within this text through a combination of acrobatics, dance and song. We settled on one passage in which Anthony sees a vast banquet hall. This is a text about a man who is tempted by the devil, and refuses to let go of his beliefs despite being taken to the edge of madness. The deeper thematic aim behind this is to look at the psychology of religious fundamentalism through movement and song.
Funding from Lab:time has allowed me to take a vital first step in envisaging and staging a small piece. As always, at the beginning of a piece, there are so many options for a piece. Lab:time helped me narrow my focus and have a solid basis of material that works. What I’m also able to see now, which I couldn’t see before this R&D, is how other circus techniques might be used. Partly through working with acro, a whole aerial dimension was opened up for us and I’m now planning on potentially using trapeze work. This R&D has therefore been useful in considering where this Saint Anthony project might stand in the context of contemporary circus.” Tom Bailey
Circus Space graduates Carlos and Caroline were awarded Lab:time funding earlier this year. This is what they got up to.
From their Lab:time application: The research and development session, will be an exploration of the set or one element of it – a versatile metal frame structure that is hinged and can be covered with panels to change its form. This piece will be central to each of the scenes. Its appearance can be changed from scene to scene and also its function, from furniture to aerial equipment to a magician’s box.
Experiments in Circus
Lab:time is Circus Space’s new flagship programme for innovation and experimentation in the Circus Arts funded by The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Through Lab:time individual artists and companies are able to secure rehearsal and R&D time in the Creation Studio at Circus Space as well as small but significant amounts of seed funding to support the first stages of exploration.
Lab:time has been created to support early stage, grass roots R&D. By offering artists the means to explore their ideas at the very beginning of the creative process it is our aim to generate a critical mass of creative development that will, over time, generate an increase in the quality and quantity of new circus-based performance across the UK.
The deadline for Lab:time applications for work taking place January - March 2013 is Friday 5 October 2012.
See what some of our previous Lab:time funding recipients got up to
Linn Broden (circus artist) Tom Richmond (Theatre technician) and Kajsa Bohlin (director) worked on the project “Push Me Pull You” in the Circus Space Creation Studio with support from Lab:time funding.
“We spent the week exploring which ways a technician and a circus artist can communicate. We worked a lot with rigging and manipulation of the A-frames. We made up a lot of games between us, to discover a language between us. We worked with the slack-rope, an armchair, recording of sound, following and copy games etc…”
