Thread by @CircusDiaries

Inspiring talk from @FirenzaGuidi at launch of new #ContemporaryCircus book from @routledgebooks 'research is creative and practice is research' - new explorations and journeys are essential to establish every working relationship (which is at the crux of every project)

Followed by Charlotte Mooney of @OckhamsRazorUK on the perspective her company has arrived at, through trying to be 'theatre' to realising that circus has enough resources to give depth of experience and potential for meaning in its own right. 'Circus was enough' #booklaunch

Co-author @jonburtt echoes @FirenzaGuidi's perspective on combining practice & research. 'It felt like there was a gap where academics weren't talking to practitioners' - this book jumpstarts such conversations, building theory from 24 artists' interviews routledge.com/Contemporary-C…

Hearing about starting points of space, apparatus, relationships, concepts... discussing keys to circus creation: freedom to be eclectic, to contest conventions, always a diversity of perspectives. Getting away from 'The circus', to the multiplicity of 'circus
#booklaunch

(And pedagogical implications of this diversity: how can students be trained for professional careers when so many different things will be asked by different circus employers? How do we train openness and adaptability? Anxiety of perfectionism a big problem among students)

Discussion around the room now about how public perceptions need to catch up with the variety of current circus realities. In UK often seen as either a) for children b) titillating c) Cirque du Soleil d) animals
They all exist, but none are the be all and end all
#booklaunch

If you know circus exists, it's still easy to be oblivious to many of its facets. If you don't know it's there, it's invisible. Still very insular. How can awareness be cultivated all round?
E.g. local Uber driver & passenger sharing my ride today had no idea @Circomedia existed