The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted events around the world, including Circus and its Others’ planned activities: Our third conference, originally planned for November 2020, will now take place in November 2021 at the University of California, Davis. We did not want to wait, however, until late 2021 to continue our work and the movement of scholars and practitioners related to the Circus and its Others project! We are therefore offering a series of smaller, on-line, digital events, spanning from Fall 2020 to the summer of 2021. With these online events involving artists and scholars, we intend to bring yet more attention world-wide to our community and to our questions.
These panels are being organized by the academic and creative committee of the Davis 2021 conference: Charles Batson, Karen Fricker, Olga Lucia Sorzano, Veronika Štefanová, and Ante Ursić; and produced by Russ Martin.
Our most recent event, Circus 2021: adaptations and possibilities amid COVID-19, took place on January 16. Watch the introduction to the event and the conclusions from the workshop below. For written notes on the workshop, visit this Google Doc.
Thank you to Global Affairs, The Department of Theatre and Dance, and The Performance Studies Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis; and the Match of Minds program at Brock University for their support.Watch all the contributor videos below for a multitude of perspectives on how the pandemic has impact circus around the world.
CIRCUS 2021: adaptations and possibilities amid COVID-19
Circus and its Others welcomes this new year with our second digital event CIRCUS 2021: Adaptations and possibilities. This global workshop will provide artists and scholars from all over the world a chance to reflect on the challenges imposed by COVID-19 within the circus world.
Practitioners were invited to produce a piece of media representing their perspectives on circus and COVID-19. How are they and their communities responding to social distancing, digital platforms, governmental regulations and changes in the entertainment business? How are they embodying and responding to the ‘new reality’? Isolated training and performances, collective actions, research through social media, adapting circus spaces, and finding new scenarios to train and perform in are some of the answers. Direct contact with the public, mobility and money are the questions that remain – not everywhere, though.
These circus artists and scholars will come together on Saturday 16th January to exchange their experiences while reimagining circus for 2021. What are the lessons learnt and what’s coming next? This is an opportunity to come together as a community to complement different approaches while taking advantage of digital tools to expand our circus networks and to learn about circus realities across the globe.
Curated and organised by: Olga Lucia Sorzano
Website and communication design: Russ Martin
Workshop panelists for Circus 2021 were invited to create a media representation of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their community. Below you will find these videos, followed by a list of participants and their bios.
Circus Zambia's Year of Disruption
Gift Chansa
Circus 2021: Illana
Diego Fernando Martinez
Circus 2021: Washington
Toni Lee Sangastiano
Circus 2021: Kampala
Richard Walusimbi
Circus 2021: New Delhi
Aastha Gandhi
Circus Unlimited: Making Dreams Come True
Gwen Hsin-Yi Chang
Mexico COVID-19 Response
Julia Sanchez
Solidarity, organization and creativity among circus artists in Argentina
Julieta Infantino
COVID-19 Safety: Keeping everyone safe
Mohammad Abusakha
Circus 2021: A Stone in Time (Leicester)
Natalie James
Descendant
Angola Murdoch
Circus 2021: Kabul
Khalilullah Hamid
A circus artist's reflection on Covid-19 Pandemic in China
Sherry Wang
Circus in Seattle during the pandemic
Trevor Asbury
Circus Center, Entoto, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Sosina Wogayehu
The Lockdown Experiments
Nalalie Verhaegen
Practice-based circus research in times of COVID, Europe-Palestine
Circus as Intercultural Encounter (Erasmus+)
Five Circus Stories in Colombia
Olga Lucia Sorzano
Participants:
Gift Chansa is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Circus Zambia. I studied acrobatics in China at Wuqiao Acrobat Art School and went to Fontys Circus Performance Academy in The Netherlands Diploma. As producer and writer for theatre and Circus, I’m keen on international collaborations and creative projects. I hope to bring joy, laughter and creativity to some of Zambia's most vulnerable children while sharing important information such as Climate Change, mental Health and Sanitations.
Richard Walusimbi Kawesa is an ACT Co-Founder and the current President. He graduated from Ndejje University in 2014 with a degree in Information Technology. Richard has extensive experience working in international development and child welfare. Richard has lived in Katwe his entire life and feels passionately about mentoring the younger generation and transforming the community. He has a six-year-old son named Ethan.
Teklu Ashagir is artistic director of Circus Debre Berhan since 2003. Teklu directed more than 36 physical and circus shows in Ethiopia and one production in Sweden in 2013. Circus Debre Berhan is the first African circus working with disables. Teklu worked with children and youths with the grass root level up to professional level.
Tracy Zhang’s work explores the intersections of circus arts, cultural diplomacy, and performance labor within transnational and feminist frameworks. In addition, Tracy co-produced a documentary, the Flip Side: A Global Circus Story (2018), about Chinese acrobats’ migration experiences. It won the best short documentary at the "Disorient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon" in the USA.
Gwen Hsin-Yi Chang has sincerity, conviction, and action; remains open and flexible in thoughts; and believes in practicing culture and art for the good of everyone every day.
Aastha Gandhi is a doctorante in theatre and performance studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a Doctoral Fellow at the Cluster of Excellence program at Freie University, Berlin. She is a trained lawyer and dancer and was recently elected as the Student Representative on the Executive Committee of the International Federation for Theatre Research.
Natalie Nicole James is an artistic dance and circus movement teacher & creator. From 2012 to 2015, Natalie studied at National Centre for Circus Arts. Specialising in double bar single point dance-trapeze and graduating with a BA Honours in Circus Arts. Natalie went straight into working with Metta Theatre touring in a street dance circus theatre production. Gaining the lead role in an adaptation of Kipling’s Jungle Book rendition of Mowgli.
Khalilulah Habibi Hamid is National Program Manager at Afghan Educational Children’s Circus. I started working in circus in the MMCC Mobile Mini Circus for Children in Afghanistan in 2002. I am artistic director of the shows and organise big and small events teaching circus skill to the Afghan circus children’s. I made more than 3000 thousand circus performance for more than 4 million audience with my circus children team.
Francesco Sgro is artistic director at Flic Circus School in Turin from 2012 to 2018. Since 2010 he is associate artist of Sosta Palmizi and invited director for Spellbound dance company. Since 2015 he is director for CODARTS University in Rotterdam. In 2018 he collaborates as director with I.N.A.C. Istituto Nazionale Arti Circensi, Portugal, also in 2018 he starts the collaboration as choreographer for Balleteatro professional dance school in Porto. He also collaborates with E.N.A.C.R. in Rosny sous bois and with D.O.C.H. in Stockholm.
Julieta Infantino is Professor and PhD in Anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires, and researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research. From an ethnographic perspective, she specialized in the study of the development of the circus art studying its historical, aesthetic as well as identity and political aspects. She is currently researching the social and political uses of circus arts and the processes of collective political organization of artists.
Julia Sanchez is an experienced leader in contemporary and social circus, with the core mission of furthering the development, empowerment and recognition circus arts and street arts in Latin America and abroad. Forerunner in the development of circus and science methodologies for education, artistic creation processes and gamification strategies for public space.
Diego Fernando Martinez is Colombian born, Diego studied theatre and acting. His passion for performing gave him the opportunity to move into Cirque and after specialising in handstand and aerial he has trained and performed in the Netherlands, Indian, UAE and he also worked on cruise ships across Europe and Australia. Now based in London he is still performing, producing and directing cirque performances across the UK and Europe.
Mohammad Abu Sakha, born 1991 in Jenin-Palestine, joined the Circus art through the Palestinian circus school in 2008, in 2011 he become a trainer and performer at the school, did many circus shows in different places in Palestine and around the word, in different Position artistically mostly clowning and also creating student productions.Next to that was involved in a social activities and art in the Palestinian society. Now next to his art work, he is a pedagogical coordinator at the Palestinian circus school.
Noha Khattab is a performing artist with a background in anthropology, clowning, circus pedagogy, and physical theatre. Noha was part of Red Tomato — a social theatre and street clowning collective — as a performer, trainer and researcher, and has participated in hundreds of performances in public spaces. She is studying at Meshkah, traditional Chinese martial arts, Chinese Medecine and Taiji Philosophy, developing a curriculum on the possibilities of the body in and out of balance.research, and developing a curriculum on the possibilities of the body in and out of balance — inspired by her background in circus techniques, alignment, and playfulness, in contrast with the focus acquired through kung fu.
Toni Lee Sangastiano is an artist-philosopher who documents circus sideshows and the carnivalesque in media and culture and her sideshow banners have flown at the freakshow in Coney Island. She earned a PhD in Visual Arts: Philosophy, Aesthetics and Art Theory, from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA).
Trevor Asbury is a community-minded interdisciplinary artist, educator and researcher exploring the intersections of human development, somatics, resiliency, language, and play.
Angola Murdoch founded LookUp Theatre, a circus and theatre company based in Ontario in 2009. Through LookUp Theatre, she creates contemporary circus and theatre productions inspired by true stories. She has been a performer in the circus industry for over eighteen years. Angola directed Toronto Circus Riot based on the actual Toronto Riot of 1855, it premiered to packed audiences and critical acclaim and garnered a Dora Nomination.|
Moderators:
Olga Lucia Sorzano is a researcher at ‘Embodied Performance Practices Project’ (AHRC-Colciencias) and ‘Circus as Intercultural Encounter’ (Erasmus+). Her work is at the crossroads of cultural, performance and decolonial studies. Her doctoral research analyses circus in Britain and Colombia to inquire for global interconnections in the stratification of artistic practices, peoples and systems of knowledge.
Nalalie Verhaegen is an artistic researcher interested in exploring the boundaries of circus. Two decades of training and performing various live arts, including touring with traditional circus companies. Since completing an MA (Directing Circus) she has been directing digital projects and co-directing on a variety of productions in the UK.
Sosina Wogayehu was born and raised in Addis Ababa. After an international career she returned to Ethiopia in 2013 to establish circus programs in Addis Ababa. She wished to build on Ethiopia’s circus traditions, and share them with the world. She also wished to harness circus as a tool for empowerment, to engage young people, and support their educational development, providing them with a pathway out of poverty.
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