#circus experiments

[nationalcircus]

Stefano Di Renzo – Lab:time

Stefano Di Renzo was awarded Lab:time in December to find ways that clothes could be designed specifically for the purpose of being used in circus performance. 

Stefano said of the project: in these 5 days of Lab:time I was fortunate to thoroughly investigate a new idea without the pressure to immediately turn my findings into a sellable product. These opportunities are so rare in the current climate and invaluable to invent. Lab:time enabled me to take real risks and dare to try out ideas I did not know would work.

He worked with Tina Koch as the female performer and object manipulator, who agreed that the Lab:time was vital for being a ‘pressure-free space’. She said of the time they spent in the Creation Studio: these 5 days opened the door to a whole new world and I believe there is a gem of a show hidden within. 

The Lab:time was a collaboration with Tina Bicât, a costume designer who has won the Critic’s Circle Award for her work with Punchdrunk, and has written several books on various aspects of theatre practice. Stefano wrote of her contribution:  Sharing her vast experience of creating intricately crafted costumes that hide all sorts of tricks and wonderful surprises, she opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities in costume design for circus.

The aim of my project was to research the manufacturing/design needs of a costume that has the perfect properties for being manipulated as an object and explore its choreographic and theatrical possibilities. Imagine trousers, shirts, dresses, shoes and jackets that look like everyday clothing, but have been carefully designed to move well when being thrown and caught and manipulated.

By incorporating hidden magnets and weights in the perfect place in the fabric and experimenting with different shapes and materials I wanted to come up with a prototype for male and female clothing that manipulates well.

We learned a great deal about the inherent manipulation properties of different types of fabric and have been able to identify exactly what we need to make a more intricate prototype for male and female clothing.

By playing around with the clothes and doing some lead improvisations we found some exciting possibilities we hadn’t previously thought of. There is a great promise in layering clothing of different properties and incorporating hidden tricks.

Other than just manipulating the fabric there is also the possibility that the costume might turn into all sorts of circus equipment: A pair of trouser legs extending into Silks, two sleeves of a top being wound up into a slack rope…

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[nationalcircus]

Interview with José Triguero and Chris Patfield

José and Chris are National Centre graduates and have recently completed a Lab:time² residency with Full Cirqle in Edinburgh at Dance Base in Glasgow.

While Lab:time continues to provide small amounts of funding for early stage creative exploration, Lab:time² which is also supported by the Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation, offers a more significant grant to support the next stage of development.

How did you get into circus?

Chris: I started juggling with my Dad when I was about 4 years old. At school, I would learn by looking at photographs of people like Francis Brunn - there were no video’s at that time. 15 years later, I’d finished a course in Sports Coaching. I saw a show in San Diego which featured a juggler and was inspired to join the National Centre’s Degree in Circus. I specialised in slack rope but I was a hobby juggler. Shaun from the Gandini’s later introduced me to the world of Siteswap, a juggling notation; this opened the doors to another world.

Jose: I’m from a little town in Extremadura. One of my friends went to a big city and brought home some juggling props. I was 16 at the time, every evening I would meet with friends in the square of my home town to practice juggling. At the age of 18, I went to Granada to study. There was a big juggling community there so I continued to juggle, as a hobby, whilst studying Environmental Science. I then decided to move to Madrid and joined a Circus school there before coming to London at the age of 23 to do a degree at the National Centre.

What have been up to since you both graduated?

Jose: I won a Deutsche Bank award and I started a company with Pablo Meneu and Gemma Palomar. I then went on to work with Gandini Juggling. Gemma and I have also set up Cul De Sac through with the support of the Arts Council. We have formed a full length version of the show which will premiere on 23 February at Jackson’s Lane.

Chris: I started to teach the slack rope on the degree at the National Centre. I then did a course at the School of Dance and Circus in Stockholm. I worked with Luke Wilson on a 6 month research project into music and juggling there. From that I went into doing high wire and now I’ve gone back to juggling.

Tell us about your journey from winning Lab:time support and how you went on to win Lab:time²?

Chris: Lab:time provided the opportunity to research our initial idea for Project Gibbon. On completion, we recognised that we needed to keep on pursuing the project. A newsletter was released for Lab:time²; it mentioned rural touring and that was a big interest as I’m from the Isle of Skye. Lab:time is great platform from which we have benefited massively, with no pressure in finding the space and having the money .

Jose: We both like a mix of juggling with movement and applying the physical layers to juggling. We like choreography and digging into new worlds. Lab:time provided us with the space to try out things with a dancer (Ian Garside from DV8). We were on tour with the Gandini’s in Paris. Lab:time² appeared and there was a good connection to Chris’s roots, as it was in Scotland, so we thought that this was ideal for us. Lab: time is one of the best things that has happened.

Can you tell us more about Project Gibbon from your Lab:time² residency?

Jose: Project Gibbon is a poetic and comic juggling/movement piece based on male gender expectations in society. It looks closely into male relationships in different contexts like affection, violence, competition, the need for personal space and how we put in social filters. As part of the development, we experimented with leaves and sycamore seeds, which act as a propeller as they fall.

Chris: How the leaves behave on the stage is beautiful. The leaves fill the space that we work with in air and gravity. We were watching David Attenborough’s Planet Earth and took some inspiration as we and how nature programs are very theatrical in there formula; there’s a mating dance, a love story and a comedy moment.

In what way has the Lab:time² residency benefited you as performers?

Jose: Having the required resources was invaluable.  As part of the residency, we worked on movement with Fabian Wicks and had producing time with Flora Heveridge. Lab:time² allowed us to be professional as we were able to pay them to work with us. It goes beyond myself and Chris because it allowed other people to combine their creativity with ours.

What’s next for Project Gibbon now that it’s been through the R&D and further development stages?

Jose: We did a presentation at the very end of the residency for Full Circle and people we had been working with. People from the Rural Touring Network came along too. We are very keen to bring something that is not very common to the rural place and in developing an audience there. Recently we had an interesting meeting with Gandini Juggling and we are going to be working with them on this as associated artists.There’s lots there for the future life of the project so our idea is to keep on researching and developing the project for this year with the aim of doing a full length in 2018. We are on the right track.

Find out more about Lab:time² here.

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Your dose of #fridayfeeling right here. A mighty collaboration featuring some of our circus degree students and graduates 🤝🤝🤝 (at National Centre for Circus Arts)