Aiming to fly higher

Circus is an unusual career choice but it made a lot of sense to me when I first encountered it 15 years ago. I was studying geology in Edinburgh; the subject offered the opportunity to be in the mountains and at the time I was a keen climber and mountaineer. Two events led to my decision to pursue circus: I started practising the Brazilian martial art Capoeira, and I experienced the wonder of Edinburgh’s Beltane celebrations, the Gallic May Day festival that marks the beginning of summer. Over the course of the next year geology took second place as I prepared to take part in the following Beltane and, as my interest waned, I started to hear stories about the fabled existence of circus schools.

In London a few months later, I dropped in to take one of the acrobatic evening classes at Circus Space (now the National Centre for Circus Arts) and I was smitten. By the end of the year, I had secured a place on the second intake of Britain’s first degree in circus (in fact it was a BA Hons in Theatre Practice: [Circus], awarded by the Central School of Speech and Drama and Circus Space). I started my geology degree in the last year that student grants existed, so my university fees were paid in full and I received a means-tested maintenance grant, both of which I was able to transfer so that it covered the two years’ fees for the new course at Circus Space. As a result, I graduated debt-free and am perhaps the only circus graduate in this position. After three years performing I undertook further training, funded by my own savings and the Arts Council England (ACE), which approved a Grants for the Arts award.

It is difficult to think usefully about whether or not the cuts to university funding would have changed the decisions I made. In all honesty, at the time it didn’t feel as though I was making a decision at all. It simply felt like a compulsion to learn. With hindsight however, it is clear that the university funding offered me the freedom to do that.

We are aiming for commercial success and a reputation strong enough to stand on our own two feet in the near future

Cirquit Productions‎, the company I founded to produce Square Peg Contemporary Circus, is funded by ACE. We are one of the new circus-producing companies that have emerged over the last 15 years as a direct result of the enormous investment in circus training that Britain has seen since the turn of the millennium.

Now here is the point: we have just seen the launch of the National Centre for Circus Arts, bringing London’s figurehead circus school in line with the other members of the European Federation of Professional Circus Schools ‎(FEDEC). This year, as has happened every year for the last fourteen years, around 20 newly trained acrobats will walk out into the bright lights of the real world where they have to seek employment to satisfy their ambition, earn a living and to pay off their £27,000 loan on top of that.

Currently, Cirquit Productions and Square Peg are reasonably well funded. With this funding we create employment as well as performances, but for those in my position things have just become tricky. We are in the middle of a slow transition. We have moved from our initial standing in 2010 as an amateur young people’s company hosted by the Roundhouse to a subsidised professional company co-commissioned by the National Theatre ‎in 2012. We are aiming for commercial success and a reputation strong enough to stand on our own two feet in the near future.

The reason things are looking tricky is that it seems that the amount of funding we currently have access to has been halved. Our main financial supporter is ACE through Grants for the Arts. Last year the normal upper application threshold halved, so unless it grants us special dispensation to apply for a similar level of funding to that we received this year, we will not be able to continue our journey towards sustainability at the same rate. This is particularly important now because there are so few circus-producing companies but so many emerging circus performers. Now I hope that I am crying wolf, because if access to the funding that currently enables our work is reduced, then we will have to question our ambition for commercial sustainability. This, despite its austerity measures, is exactly where our current government suggests we ought to aim. There is quite a contradiction in the fact that while there is so much talk of commerce, these aims could once again become distant, just at the point when all the investment in circus is starting to reap clearly visible benefits.

This is important because as far as I am aware, the last 20 years of funding has not yet spawned a resilient, commercially sustainable circus-producing company that has been able to stay in this country. I believe that we might be able to become that company, but that will depend on support to enable us to reach that position. But we are not there yet. We are solvent and ambitious and rife with opportunities. We are in the midst of our largest tour to date, and already looking for partners and ideas with whom to build our next production… and until then, do try to catch Rime (pictured above), our adaptation of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, on tour around the country until October.

Tim Lenkiewicz is Director of Cirquit Productions and Square Peg Contemporary Circus.
cirquit.org.uk
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