Happy Sunday circus peeps!
So we only have today and tomorrow left on our Operation Circus crowd funder and we’ll be sad to see it come to an end… however, we’ve seemed to create quite a buzz around circus in Birmingham! Wahooooo!
From 2004 through until 2010, when I would return to Birmingham between my travels there was no circus scene or community. I had heard of a juggling club somewhere that had closed, and maybe had restarted back up but couldn’t find it online, and I searched! Lots of places in the world had small scenes popping up yet it seemed strange, as big of a place as Birmingham was, there was no community here. Or if there was… I couldn’t find it.
By the time CircusMASH started in early 2011, circus started becoming a little more common on TV, and it started to integrate more widely, publicly into other performing arts which gave its profile a big boost, which was great for us as people were more interested then than ever before. Over the last five years there has started to build a community of circus individuals that do circus for lots of different reasons in Birmingham. These communities have started to connect together within the region and connect nationally to other organisations. Speaking with the National Circus in January this year I learned of the lack of Midlands based applicants they received on their degree programmes, probably to with the lack of circus here, but in my opinion, the opportunities and education surrounding circus has not had a chance to reach the people in the Midlands so with this growth lets look to the future.
Over the last five years we have started to see more professional circus programmed for our city, especially through the summer. There have been some amazing companies that have passed through and this is only going to grow! This is the start of the wave of circus that is going to take over the world. One day, it will be integrated into education more nationally- just like dance and drama. I have every belief in this, and if I have anything to do with it, it will be sooner rather than later. I am so happy to see circus in Birmingham growing and more opportunities becoming available throughout the region.
I am so happy to be able to play a part in this growth and now with the announcement of the new BTEC programme in partnership with Solihull College this is the start of our educational mission to help schools to understand why circus works!