At the start of our journey in to the Accidental Festival 2010 when we were picking our roles I knew that there was only one for me. Circus is something which has fascinated me ever since I was a small child. Initially revelling in my younger sister’s fear of clowns, and realising that simply by painting some crosses over my eyes and applying some white face paint I could insight her screams. I was drawn to the character of the clown for potentially questionable reasons. My wonderment grew when I first realised how difficult it was to keep three balls in the air and juggle and even more when I was taken to the big top for the first time as a child to make myself sick with candy-floss and watch borderline animal cruelty cheered on by all who watched. I left the big top behind shortly afterwards and indeed the circus altogether for many years until I was a teenager. At this point in my life I became obsessed with free party and rave culture. Bristol life leads the youth to this lifestyle with worrying ease. Ever since my growing interest and involvement with this scene as well as more traditional theatre and arts culture I have been striving to find ‘the missing link.’ It was not until I was old enough to start finding my way to festivals, and discovering performance companies within a setting so far removed from what I considered to be a theatre that I realised that circus was this link.
So is circus the missing link between the informal setting of a club and traditional theatre? In the current day it is more and more important to find this link, in order to attract young people of the clubbing generation in to the theatre. The current resurgence of the circus is clear to see, over the last year we have seen albums and tours from some of the world’s biggest pop acts such as Britney Spears and Take That entitled ‘circus’ and acts such as Cirque du Soleil and Cirkus Cirkor take up residencies at major west end venues, at the same time more underground companies are emerging and creating circus inspired work in venues at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, with squat parties and raves becoming not just about mediocre techno and hardtek but about original work and the absurdities which we find in the circus. This is clearly accessible to the people who attend such events in a way that more serious work would not be and this is what most attracts me to modern circus.
This post was written by Harry Bradford, who is our Circus and Physical Theatre Liaison as well as being on the club night team. What an excellent combination to throw an awesome event at AF2010