Supporting the Development of Circus in Education
Since November 2022, Galway Community Circus has been a company in residence at University of Galway via the Arts Council's Young People, Children and Education Residency Scheme, and will continue the residency until the end of 2024.
YPCE Residency with University of Galway
Galway Community Circus are currently artists-in-residence at University of Galway as part of the Arts Council’s YPCE Residency programme where we have enriched modules across BA degrees delivering workshops, seminars and public events. Through this residency, Galway Community Circus brings our celebrated work with children to the education sector. The goal of this residency is to continue the collaboration between Galway Community Circus and University of Galway on embedding Youth and Social Circus in the curriculum of three degree courses across disciplines to educate a new generation of teachers on the benefits of circus in children’s education.
Through the residency, in collaboration with staff and students, Galway Community Circus contributes classes and workshops on modules across three disciplines; BA in Early Childhood Education and Professional Practice; BA in Children Studies and BA in Drama, Theatre and Performance over the Spring and Autumn 2023 terms.
To date, Galway Community Circus has delivered workshops as part of the Applied Theatre, Children and Creativity, Promoting Inclusion in Early Years Care and Education and Understanding Children’s Early Learning modules. We also hosted the first ever conference on circus and education at the university in November 2022 with speakers and contributors across academia and the circus education sector.
You can read more about the residency here.
“Yesterday's session exceeded my expectations. It was brilliantly pedagogically coordinated, and I loved the intentionality and depth of Davi's debrief as well as the practical session. It is such a gift to get to learn and reflect on my own pedagogy as well as working with Galway Community Circus alongside my students. GCC fit so well as partners with this module and my thought, about one hour in, was how do we keep this going always?” Dr. Charlotte McIvor, Senior Lecturer, Head of Discipline and Head of Undergraduate Studies, Drama and Theatre Studies, School of English and Creative Arts
Designing Futures
Galway Community Circus co-delivered our very first full 12-week module at the University of Galway for the Designing Futures programme, an initiative developed to help students succeed in life and the future world of work.
The module was called ‘Fail Better: Taking Risks and Developing Resilience through Circus’ and offered students the opportunity to build personal resilience, investigate the benefits of risk-taking and the importance of failure in a learning process by practicing circus skills. In weekly workshops students are introduced to juggling, tightwire and acrobatics while also attending lectures on risk, resilience and failure from a range of different disciplinary perspectives.
Read more about the module here.
“It’s important to bring an activity like circus that is practiced at a youth/community level to third-level education. It adds value to circus as a practice, but it can also help change the way circus is perceived. Circus can be seen as just playing around, but it allows participants to learn how to fail, to co-create, to regain body awareness, and to find parts of themselves they may have forgotten about that are important for living a happy and healthy life.” Davi Hora, circus artist and Galway Community Circus tutor
Arts in Action
We were delighted to be a part of the Arts in Action programme in November at the University of Galway. At the event, we discussed the details of our exciting partnership as company-in-residence at the University, funded by the Arts Council’s YPCE Residency Scheme, introduced the individual circus artists involved in the residency, and heard about some of the exciting research projects taking place from Dr. Ian Walsh.
Circus artists and Galway Community Circus tutors Lisa, Davi and Isabela gave insights into their careers and showed off their circus skills for those in attendance.
