New Horizon Leadership Program, or NHLP-EU has been a learning experience on several fronts and topics. Being thrown into a group with such a width and wealth of perspective and experience is both discombobulating and incredibly inspiring all at the same time.
Both for myself as an independent circus artist, but also on a personal level. There’s a lot to be said about the mindset and problem solving abilities of those who work in this field, and having shared ten months with both fellows and experts from the program revealed some common practices that have stuck in my mind since, and some lessons I wish to take with me in the future.
Most of these lessons were learned during my shadowing experience in Split, Croatia, where I had the privilege to follow Antonia Kuzmanic in her work leading up to the Peculiar Families Festival.
“All that is needed for circus to survive is one crazy woman” - Mara Pavula, Rigas Cirks
Adapt and overcome
Split is relatively isolated with regards to circus. While there are circus organisations in the Balkans, there’s an absence of overarching support, governmental or otherwise, for the art form, as well as a lack of well equipped creation spaces. In spite of this, there is still circus happening. Shows are created and tour, European projects like Circostrada’s general meeting and Hand to Hand are hosted, and several festivals take place.
When working in a place without (almost) any infrastructure, without the recognition of national theaters or other cultural bodies, you make your own. Antonia Kuzmanic becomes the closest thing to a national circus association that can be found.
Not as an authoritative arm, but as the common denominator who knows everyone and every place. A sort of Swiss army-knife of cultural affairs, equipped with both political savviness and gaffer tape. Someone who connects two worlds; the DIY punk circus of squatted creation spaces, and the halls of the ministry of culture, and brings both together for the benefit and growth of circus.
But working alone is not the method, even if that’s often how it is done.
By banding together with other cultural enthusiasts, like film festival organisers, radio stations, and artists from other fields, her network isn’t made up of only circus practitioners who work on similar projects, but rather of a diverse team who apply their respective expertises in individual ways. As an effect they create a network that has more diverse resources and a bigger toolkit. My takeaway as the shadow in all this is to look at my network not from a circus specific lens, but simply as a network of different competences that are ready and able to offer solutions I wouldn’t have thought of.
The biggest part of this is in fact to ask, to speak to people about what needs doing. If you get over the barrier of asking for those who are capable of what you need done, the potential not only to include more people in your work increases, but also the spaces and formats your work can be presented in, multiplies. For the sake of diversity and development of the art form this represents vast, and often untapped, opportunity.
Talking to some of the other fellows in the NHLP-EU, a common problem is that we tell ourselves we need to solve our problems alone, or within our own circus companies. We assume that circus problems require circus solutions. This is a luxury in its own right, to isolate oneself within circus.
The smaller circus scenes don’t have this privilege. If one looks at scenes in places like Estonia, Iceland and Croatia there’s a type of social resourcefulness that is exemplified through its ability to maintain a circus scene with a strong identity, sustained through virtually nothing but thin air and the stubbornness of its participants. I want to make it clear that I’m not romanticising a lack of resources, but rather celebrating those who are capable of doing the most with the least.
What I want to conclude these musings with is this:
Since following Antonia, I’m aspiring to look at my work in a wider context, my network in a broader sense, and to reach out whatever helping hand I can to the scenes and artists in the periphery, and finally, to look at the things to which I have access, instead of those that are out of reach.
