Anemoi

EVS guide for youth circusses

2010-09-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

As the result of a seminar this last spring about European Voluntary Service, the youth circus Pimparello in Gschwend, from germany, published a guide to EVS.
This notebook can be used by youth circusses who wants to send or welcome volunteers from other European countries; as well as by youth who wants to prepare themself to volunteer in a youth circus organisation abroad.
It explains the main goals and the functioning of the EVS , present the roles and the responsablities of each key actors of the program, gives information about the actual host organisation involved in the program, and also alot of practical information to apply.

To download the notebook, click here.

Big Bang Guests

2010-09-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

No Mad Land:

Cheap Clowns:

BIG BANG FESTIVAL

2010-09-07T04:33:00.000-07:00

Big Bang is a festival, organised by Circusplaneet, from 13 to 20 July, based on an international youth circus exchange, between four different schools:

-Circusplaneet, Belgium

-Circus Poehaa, Netherlands

-Circus Keikaus, Finland

-Cabuwazi, Germany

It has been created with the support of the “Youth in Action programme", the EU programme for young people aged 15-28, “which aims to inspire a sense of active citizenship, solidarity and tolerance among young Europeans and to involve them in shaping the Union's future. It promotes mobility within and beyond the EU borders, non-formal learning and intercultural dialogue, and encourages the inclusion of all young people, regardless of their educational, social and cultural background”.

For 6 days Big Bang festival gave the opportunity to the youngsters to exchange their circus-skills, and experience an international meeting. It offered them the possibility to broaden their horizons, to discover new culture, to learn about other countries and other languages.

Combining circus exchange and collaboration with intercultural, informal learning was one of the main goals of the project. In this frame/optic, circus arts have been used as a tool for intercultural learning, as a stimulation to think about topics like collaboration on an international level, or like group work with people from different background.

Circus skills, like acrobatics for example, are based on values like trust, communication and an awareness of the abilities and problems of each other. Therefore by using circus as a common basis, the project aimed to develop sense of tolerance and understanding of each others abilities, as well as each others diversity.

So what’s big bang in everyday life? It’s almost hundred teens living all together, with their differences of languages and cultures.

I have been amazed to see how fast the kids found many different ways to communicate, how fast they started to share about their circus skills. That was just mad to switch from one language to another all day long, and to work with kids without being able to speak with them! But at least circus helps a lot in non-verbal communication. As an art of the body, it transcends linguistic barriers, and as team work it helps to establish trust and group spirit between all the participants.

The program was quite intense. Wake up early (to early for me!) and after a good breakfast, opening activities, as big group icebreaker and warming up. Then intercultural workshop, using a lot physical theatre and mime. After lunch, we split the group in several team for circus workshops, in circus skills like floor acrobatics, pyramids, German wheel, waveboard, slack rope, static trapeze and aerial silk, diabolo, juggling (never saw so much girl juggling), circus theatre, and steals. Then a little break, and dinner before the public events, which mixed performances from professional guest artist, and performances of each circus schools. After all these activities, some of us still found the energy for open training, and big group games, while some others enjoyed simple talk around card and chest game.

The festival ended with the participation of the whole group in the openings parade of the culture festival “Gentse Feesten” and the performances of each school on the stage of the Youth Circus Festival during the “Gentse Feesten”. The parade was a big deal: each school had to prepare a walking act and costumes on its side during the year, and we had only few days all together to transform it in a big common work.

Sometimes it was a bit hard to overpass cultural gap (about food, or security for example) and to find compromises. But when we started to work all together for the Parade, creativity was boiling and the mix of all of our ideas gave a wonderful result.

But at least that was the main goal of the exchange: to lead every participant to wonder how we can use our differences as a wealth, and not as a source of conflict.

Workshops:

Public Events:

Parade:

Cirque du Monde- 15 years

2010-09-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

Circusplaneet

2010-05-07T03:36:00.000-07:00

Multidisciplinair, Middebaar, met ervaring

Circusplaneet

2010-04-28T03:36:00.000-07:00

1ste en 2de leerjaar

Extreme Convention

2010-04-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

16, 17, 18 th of April, Antwerpen, Belgium:

2 days of pure circus madness organized by Ell Circo D'ell Fuego in Antwerpen. From 9 am till 6pm, workshops of teter board, chineese pole, trampoline, floor acrobatics, air tracks, tissue, mini flying trapeze, handbalancing, german wheel, cradle, juggling, diabolo, cyr wheel, aerial hoop, russian swing, hanstand, high wire, and (my favorite) russian bar...

Then from 8pm till ??? crazy performances from the Atlas Festival:

More info here

Paaskamp

2010-04-28T02:57:00.000-07:00

EYCO

2010-04-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

The first European organisation specifically for youth circus is born:
On November the 5th 2009 five national federations have founded a federation named
European Youth Circus Organisation (EYCO). This organisation aims at stimulating and
supporting on a European level:
‐ The process of recognising and structuring youth circus,
‐ The quality improvement of youth circus,
‐ The promotion of youth circus ‐ by its nature a popular, accessible and inclusive art
form – as a means for participants to take an active role in society.

EYCO is composed of 9 members including 5 full members constituted of national existing
federations: Fédération Française des Ecoles de Cirque (France), Circuscentrum (Belgium
Flemish community), BAG Zirkuspädagogik (Germany), Finnish Youth Circus Association
(Finland), Circomundo (Netherlands) and 4 candidate full members currently in the process of
formalising their national representation, that is to say Spain, Italy, United Kingdom and Belgium(French community).

EYCO gathers today 470 circus schools/organisations, 2 200 teachers and 550 000 people who
practice circus arts.

The office of this new federation is located at the "Fédération Française des Ecoles de Cirque", in Paris.

To know more about it: Welcome to EYCO, the European Youth Circus Organisation

The Five Full Members:
Fédération Française des Ecoles de cirque (France)
Circuscentrum (Flemish Belgium)
BAG Zirkuspädagogik (Germany)
Finnish Youth Circus Association (Finland)
Circomundo (Netherlands)

Fullstop Acrobatic Theatre

2010-04-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

To know more, here

Circusplaneet

2010-04-28T01:49:00.000-07:00

Multidisciplinair 1ste en 2de leerjaar

A break dance time

2010-04-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

2010-04-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

Les frèsres Kazamaroff, by Antoine Dubroux

Cie Un loup pour l'homme

2010-04-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

26 nth of March , in Waregem

Un loup pour l’homme works in association with Cheptel Aleikoum.

Vintage acrobatic stars

2010-04-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

Juanita and Ganjou Brothers, in the "The Dresden Clock and A Romance In Porcelain", from 1943 British film Variety Jubilee.

Funky Friday (on saturday)

2010-04-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

Just few days after my arrival here, I had the chance to participate to the “Funky Friday”, an open stage that take place twice in the year in Ghent, in the theatre de Vieze Gasten . The main goal of this event is to mix amateur and professional circus artists in a cabaret show. Wonderfull place, and a warm atmosphere…

Circusplaneet, starting point

2010-04-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

Time go so fast, It’s been just one month that arrived here in Circusplaneet and I already have so much things in my head, and so much things to do. Where to start?
I am French, and this year I decided to leave the suburbs of Paris to live in Flemish Belgium, in Ghent. How did land here? That’s quite a long story.
I’ve been practicing circus art, especially trapeze, since few years now, and after finishing my studies I decided to get fully involved in circus. I wanted to practice a lot circus arts, but also to learn about the organisation of a circus school and about circus pedagogy.
Thus for I subscribe to the EVS program. The European Voluntary Service (EVS) provides young Europeans with a chance to voluntehttper in a non-profit organisation for few months till one year, in a foreign country within or outside the EU. The main goal of this program is to develop solidarity, mutual understanding and tolerance among young people, thus contributing to reinforcing social cohesion in the European Union and to promoting young people's active citizenship. At least by participating in voluntary activities, young volunteers can develop new skills, and, therefore, improve their personal, educational and professional development.
So it took me days to glance through the EVS database, to make a compilation of the circus host organizations in Europe. That’s how I came to discover several circus schools in Belgium. Circus Centrum also helped me a lot, sending my references to different organization in Flanders. Circusplaneet answered to me fast, in a very warm and friendly way. That’s how everything started.
Here, I am assisting teachers during the lessons, and during workshop in the hospital, I am taking pictures and shooting movies for the school website, working on costumes for performances… But my main task is to prepare a youth exchange between four different European schools (from Germany, Finland, Netherlands, and Belgium), and to organize with them a youth circus festival in July, here in Ghent. And of course training, training, training.
In this blog I’ll try to describe each activity I get involved in, by putting picture and movies. Maybe you’ll find your face in one of them. If you don’t like it, just tell me and I will erase it…

Phare Ponleu Selpak

2010-03-26T05:38:00.000-07:00

Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPS), meaning “the brightness of art”, originated in 1986 in Site 2 Refugee Camp on the Thai border. The idea of a creative association, which would use art and expression to help young refugees overcome the trauma of war, emerged from drawing workshops held for children in the camps. This original idea continued after the refugees returned to their homeland, and PPS was formally founded in 1994 by a group of former Site 2 children.

Phare Ponleu Selpak is a Cambodian non governmental organisation. It aims to support community development through providing social, educative and cultural services to children and their families. Phare Ponleu Selpak implements a global approach aiming to answer children’s individual needs to ensure each child’s is able access their rights.

Phare Ponleu Selpak’s action is centered around artistic practice. Arts are used not only as a tool to foster expression, but also as a complete set of tools aimed at answering children’s psycho-social needs. This includes education, life skills, social skills and personal development. Following the years of war and the destructive Khmer Rouge Regime, Cambodian culture was seriously damaged. Artistic practice is then a means to allow the population to rediscover and reclaim their cultural practices and knowledge, allowing them to rebuild their identity.

Pps’s social action involves 30 children who are hosted within the compound in the Child Care Center and 46 more supported while staying with their families in their communities. These children face some deep social issues; they are victims of child trafficking, domestic violence, abandonment, disease, extreme poverty, and street begging. All the children benefit from a nutrition program (three meals a day), medical support (medical primary care, medical referral, medical charges), education support (schooling support, school material, school follow-up, non formal education), as well as from cultural and artistic activities (three art schools and a leisure centre). Furthermore, 150 children daily are welcomed in the leisure center to enjoy educative, cultural, artistic and leisure activities. 75 children a day also have free access to books and games in the library.

The three artistic schools form the core of PPS’ work in the community. These three schools, open to all and free of charge, are used by 450 children either for leisure activities or as vocational training. These three schools are: Visual art school, Music School and Performing Arts school divided into a Theatre program and a Circus Arts section

For the past 11 years, the circus school has welcomed street kids and teenagers to train all day long in several circus disciplines: acrobatics, juggling, balancing, contortion, trapeze and clowning. Twenty of those kids are now young adults who have become outstanding professional artists performing in Cambodia and all around the world.

An entertaining but also constructive discipline, the practice of circus requires a personal commitment, individual and collective application, thus creating a healthy relation to authority through a disciplinary structure. It’s a productive way for kids to confront ‘risk’, in the secure frame of the school, rather than confronting danger on the street. Therefore Det strongly believes that circus can help youths with difficult social backgrounds to get out of vulnerable situations and violent cycles.

(In French only)

More than 120 pupils attend the circus school everyday, from 8am to 11am in the morning and 2pm to 5pm in the afternoon. They are divided into six groups according to their age and level, and are trained by eight different specialized teachers. The school offers technical sessions, physical training, collective games and time for stretching/warming down

After few years the most talented students formed a company and set up a show called ‘Bong Touch Bong Thom’, which had great success immediately. Some of these artists, urged by the need of transmitting what they had enjoyed, naturally started teaching in the school. Others decided to go further with their artistic career and joined new productions to be performed around the world.

Social Circus

2010-03-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

Social Circus refers to the growing movement toward the use of circus as an agent of social change, as a tool of personal and social development of young people and for an intercultural dialogue. It uses alternative pedagogical tools to work with marginalized people, mainly with youth with personal or social difficulties.

While a career in the circus is one possible future to the youth who participate in the social circus, it is not the purpose. Rather, the objective it to increase self-awareness, individuality and collective unity, self-discipline and many other values through a pedagogical alternative in order to transform the vision and capabilities of youth. The main goals of the trainings are to teach autonomy, solidarity, self-esteem, perseverance, physical-fitness, communication, and adaptability.

In social circus, circus arts are also used as a motor for intercultural dialogue. As an art of the body it transcends linguistic barriers. Circus is then used as a special tool for encountering the other, regardless of ethnic or social origin, and to promote social and cultural diversity for the artists as well as for the audience.

On the right side of this blog, I put some links on social circus program in the world. The most famous between all of them is the project Cirque du Monde, a branch of the Cirque du Soleil that works to expand and support social circus programs in eighteen different countries, and over forty worldwide communities. The Circus du Monde also offers intensive programs and training networks, aimed at enhancing the teaching skills of the circus instructors who wish to practice their art in a social-intervention context.

To know more about the project of "Cirque du Monde", click here.

And to know about the partners of the project, click here.

Handstand

2010-03-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

FEDEC

2010-03-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

Created in 1998, the European Federation of Professional Circus Schools (FEDEC) is a network that comprises 38 professional circus schools located in 20 different countries (Albania, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia and United Kingdom). FEDEC’s main vocation is to support the development, evolution of pedagogy and creation in the field of circus arts education. To accomplish this, FEDEC published in 2008 a directory including a compilation of circus schools across the world, and a survey about the sort of training that they provide.

In this document you’ll find the FEDEC database of school contacts, informations on their level of training, details of the skills that they teach at that level ; and at least a translations of circus skills techniques in English, Spanish, Deutch and French.

Les 7 doigts de la main/ The 7 fingers

2010-03-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

"Les 7 doigts de la main translates literally as "the 7 fingers of the hand". It is a twist on a French idiom ("the five fingers of the hand") used to describe distinct, individual parts united tightly, moving in coordination towards one common goal. Here it refers to the 7 directors/ founding members of the company who, by combining their very distinct personalities, talents and experiences, work towards their common artistic goals, functioning with all the dexterity and beautifully awkward coordination of an unconventional and unlikely 7-fingered hand.

The 7 Fingers was founded in Montreal in 2002 by seven seasoned circus performers. Friends who had worked together in such prestigious companies as the Cirque du Soleil, the Cirque Eloize, Wintergarten Variety, Teatro Zinzanni, the Pickle Family Circus and Cirque Knie, or trained together at Montreal’s National Circus School, they decided it was time to offer something new to the circus arts scene, to create a circus of an entirely different flavor".

More about it? click here

2010-01-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

Anemoi

EVS guide for youth circusses

Big Bang Guests

BIG BANG FESTIVAL

Cirque du Monde- 15 years

Circusplaneet

Circusplaneet

Extreme Convention

Paaskamp

EYCO

Fullstop Acrobatic Theatre

Circusplaneet

A break dance time

Cie Un loup pour l'homme

Vintage acrobatic stars

Funky Friday (on saturday)

Circusplaneet, starting point

Phare Ponleu Selpak

Social Circus

Handstand

FEDEC

Les 7 doigts de la main/ The 7 fingers

Ex Nihilo,"Loin de là" © Martine Derain