Circus Dreaming and Small Change

19 Feb 2015

Details

Vulcana Women’s Circus works with the circus traditions of inclusiveness, strength, excitement, and daring to transform and empower individuals and communities.

Funding from Arts Queensland supported Vulcana Women's Circus to produce Circus Dreaming, a project for young women at risk; a forum about Stolen Wages with Elders at kuril dhagun; and Small Change, a new performance work that supported cross-cultural and cross generational exchanges.

All Small Change project participants developed skills in devising, and constructing a new performance work and presenting it to audiences. The process of progressing from stories and shared ideas, to theatrical images, using dance and circus in new ways were major learning opportunities for new and emerging performers. The students of Circus Dreaming learnt new circus skills and developed confidence through being supported to overcome doubt in themselves and fear of unknown things.

What a buzz! So much fun. To be 64 – an age where women become invisible – and stand up on stage with the others taking a bow for the first time ever – I’m still tingling.

When

April to December 2014

Where

Brisbane

Key stats

585 attendees and 49 participants
10 paid artists/arts and cultural workers

Arts Queensland contribution

$50,000 – Projects and Programs Fund

Outcomes

Producing a successful and unique work of community theatre. The work was owned by the performer/ devisers and was a result of their conversations, discussions and devising. It came from their experience and showcased their stories and their skills.

Small Change was a powerful example of the fact that everyone has a story and everyone’s story has the capacity to be powerful and beautiful.

Two arts workers were mentored through the process participating in planning session and rehearsals to learn and assist with the development of a community theatre making process. Both reported the value of this experience as artists interested in working in the community arts sector.
Seven emerging artists gained invaluable experience through participation and support within the project, in developing new work in collaboration with diverse co-performers, and in being challenged to develop their own work though the project. Two other emerging artists were identified through the project and all are planning to create new work with Vulcana's support in 2015.
Vulcana has an ongoing partnership with the MADE group, now called WaW Dance, to provide opportunities for the group to perform at Vulcana events, to support other of their activities, and to share resources and ongoing support to each other and to each other’s values.

Learnings and reflections

Staff from Vulcana had the following reflections about the process of developing the works:

One of the major reflections from the performance group from Small Change was the time required to create such a detailed piece of performance work from the first meetings of a new group, to brainstorming around the theme, the learning about each other, devising, crafting, rehearsing and presenting in only four months of one meeting a week. The project must balance how much time community participants can commit to a project over an extended period of time against how much time would be ideal. Some participants are more available than others. While some would have preferred more time others were very grateful that that they were able to participate. The project must be accessible to as many community members as possible and scheduling is a major component of this. One suggestion was to break the process into creative development and rehearsal with a break between for participants to catch up with their lives and the creative team to catch up with writing and processing input and skills development and responses to devised material.

The slow, longer term process of meeting with the Elders from the Stolen Wages Working Group was a significant learning process for the project director, to not demand their support but to learn about their situation and see if what the project could offer was important enough and could fit their requirements. It was important to not make assumptions about the relevance of our project to their ongoing concerns. This building of trust was important to make the Reflections forum welcoming to Elders despite the difficult request of sharing very difficult stories. Many of the Elders from the group attended the event to share their stories and the project was enriched as a result. It made a huge impact on all those who attended.

Contact for further information

Email: Kirstin Sillitoe

Phone: 07 3358 1888

Website: http://vulcana.org.au/