Circus Transformation Advanced

Last week we hosted a 5-day meeting in Galway for Circus Transformation (CTF) Advanced with the Caravan Youth and Social Circus Network and European circus school partners Sorin Sirkus, Altro Circo, Cirqueon and Cirkus Cirkor. Circus trainers, programme participants, coordinators and researchers all took part in an intense week of meetings, workshops, and research.

Circus Transformation Advanced is a research project that works to develop, enhance and evaluate the Circus Transformation training programme for Social Circus teachers. The project aims to strengthen the network with partners from social and youth work, disseminate the knowledge gained in previous training programmes and enable active communication between the fields of circus arts, social and youth work. The project also evaluates the CTF training programme, updates the CTF Guidebook and forms a peer network and follow-up strategy for CTF alumni.

“It’s been extremely intense, a lot of fun, and there’s been some true eye-openers,” explained Clara Norman, Manager of Pedagogy and Training at Cirkus Cirkor.

For context, the Circus Transformation programme is a training for trainers programme for Social Circus teachers to develop skills to use circus for social engagement and change. The programme is run by the Caravan network and has been running for 10 years and is now on its 7th cycle. The CTF training programme brings together 10 organisations from the Caravan network and over 20 participants for 4 week-long modules on various core elements of Social Circus training.

We're delighted to be able to participate in these programmes as members of the Caravan network and professionally develop our artists and tutors as well as the youth and social circus sector here in Ireland.

We asked the CTF Advanced participants to describe the project in one or two words. Here’s what they said:

• Connection
• Fun
• Pedagogy
• Inspiration
• International Work
• World
• Community
• Happiness
• Cultural Exchange
• Collaboration
• Engagement
• Social Circus
• Compassion

During the week, a research team made up of Dr. Ilaria Bessone, Dr. Heta Mulari and Dr Ian R. Walsh worked with CTF participants to gather insights and evaluate the CTF training programme. A new, innovative workshop took place where they asked past participants of the CTF training programme to assess the impact of the programme through circus skills. The workshop was a means to gather information from the participants using the language of circus to access insights that typically can’t be gathered through traditional surveys. Participants performed, using circus props, objects and disciplines as a way to understand and communicate to the group the impact the CTF training programme had on them.

“We had a lovely moment where somebody was on the silks, and they were gathering the silks around them, with the idea being that the programme gives them a sense of support and validation as a circus trainer. We had people on the wire, and it was interesting not just how they were balancing on the wire, but also how they approached the wire - the nervousness around that, the trepidation and the exploration,” explained Dr. Ian Walsh, a lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies from the University of Galway, who is also a researcher on the CTF Advanced project and Chair of the Galway Community Circus Board of Directors. “When chatting with the participants after the performances, they expressed how in a way that was physicalising their sense of growth, trepidation and the growing confidence they got from the programme. We gathered some really lovely insights from the workshop and it was a lot about vulnerability and growth mindset, and those things that aren’t necessarily captured in a survey.”

Workshops, trainings and research took place between two venues, Galway Community Circus and the University of Galway.

The CTF Advanced project runs though April 2024. The first two workshops took place in Prague and Stockholm and the final workshop will take place in Italy in October, with a conclusion meeting in February 2024.

The Circus Transformation 7 training programme will be delivered through 4 x 5-day training modules (20 days in total) between June 2023 and April 2024.

Circus Transformation Advanced is funded by Erasmus+ and coordinated by Sorin Sirkus, Finland.