Earlier in 2017, Catherine Boot of Can’t Sit Still won National Centre for Circus Arts Lab:time space and funding to research a new project to explore the role of gender stereotyping in childhood, taking the form of ‘high quality improvisational circus theatre’ for young children (ages 2-5).
She was joined by performers Hobbit and Jake England Johns, as well as musician Harriet Riley.
Catherine found that circus for children works well as they ‘have a real fascination with the feats of the human body’. She noted that the performance seemed to elicit a visceral response in the young members of the audience: ‘the children were kneeling up and fidgeting (in a good way), even sometimes unconsciously mirroring the physicality of the performers. We liked this effect on the audience - circus and extended physicality clearly reaches something more primal than words do.’
During Research and Development, the group tried out various approaches towards improvisation and freedom of movement. When there was freedom of movement on both sides – the audience and the performers – it led to slightly comedic safety issues: ‘at times the performers weren’t able to commit to a trick or move fully as they were worried about hitting small people in the face.’
Another experiment involved a format where the children chose what happened next in the story; this however was found to only really benefit those members of the audience who had verbal skills. Catherine concluded that ‘in the future I would like to focus in on a fixed circus routine with the audience being able to move freely in the space … we need to work on this area more to allow curiosity and eagerness to flourish, whilst remaining in control of the space and structure.’
The performers also found success in engaging the adult members of the audience: ‘The adults were very drawn in at the moment when the performers started to use their circus skills – it felt as if all of a sudden they were sitting up and paying attention, like this wasn’t the sort of ‘children’s theatre’ they had expected to see.’ This was enhanced by the small, intimate space that the performances took place in: ‘the skills had more of an impact as they were literally within reaching distance and the adult audience felt more engaged as there was no barrier between themselves and the performance.’
Catherine described the project as having ‘great potential’. The show – now christened Plink and Boo – is currently in further development and will tour in Autumn 2018.
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