Thanks to the support of the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, Circus250: Diverse • Real • Physical, a European collaboration between Crying Out Loud, Subtopia, Cork Midsummer Festival and Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde, kicked into action in November 2017 with a 10 day residency in Paris with UK hip hop collective Far From The Norm and three European circus and dance artists from Sweden, Ireland and France.
The residency marked the beginning of the creation of a new work, Union Black and provided the opportunity for the core ensemble of artists to experiment with merging the forms of hip hop dance and circus.
Gaëtan Lévêque introduced the dancers from Far From The Norm to circus skills along with artists Alessio Motta (Chinese pole) and Arthur Sidoroff (tight wire) who were part of the core ensemble, along with dancers Matteusz Szczerek, and from Far From the Norm, Jordan Douglas. Shangomola Edunjobi, Joshua Nash, Ezra Owen, Victoria Shulungu and Naïma Souhaïr. Together they worked to devise a fresh vocabulary and create a new and relevant piece of work, Union Black, under the direction of Botis Seva.
Union Black was developed and toured over a 12 month period. In each city in which it was performed, the core ensemble expanded to incorporate local dance and circus artists. As a result, a bespoke version of the show featuring the skills of the homegrown talent was performed at each tour venue.
Dramaturg and film-maker Nedjma Had Benchelabi was commissioned to produce a short film documenting the artists’ individual creative journeys during the process. Nedjma followed the artists at every step of the creation of the show to understand the impact of this international , cross-artform project on their practice. The result is a 12-minute intimate and sensitive documentary that highlights the key learnings for this artist from the 12-month long process which you can watch here.
With the support of the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
With the support of the Institut français.
