MEET THE FAMILY: The Academy of Circus Arts & Festival Circus has 18 people on the lot.   Ann & Greg are the Directors of the whole shebang and have traveled from the Big Apple of NY.   Meghan is our Box Office Manager and comes to us from Boulder, Colorado in the USA.   Valentin, Iva, Val Jr. and Ivo hail from Bulgaria and will act as performing artists and instructors.

The students this year are a wildly enthusiastic and talented lot:

Elin Bielecka is 25 years old and hails from London.   She has extensive experience in theatre, stage crew and performance, as well as juggling and pyrotechnic skills.   Elin currently resides in Colchester and is looking forward to expanding her juggling and acrobatic skills at the ACA.  

Paul Bradley is 25 years old, grew up in Luton but now lives in Stroud.   After four serious years with the Army Parachute Regiment, he just wants to make people laugh!   Paul looks forward to developing his comedy, clowning and acrobatics skills while with the ACA.

Disa Carneol is 17 years old and comes to the ACA from Madison, Wisconsin in the United States.   She has studied aerial and acrobatic skills for several years and can't wait to get off the ground in her first overseas experience.

Donald Choi is 22 years old and was born in Hong Kong.   He holds a degree in biochemistry and resides in Streatham.   Donald is flamboyantly flexible and looks forward to a career in cabaret & club performance.

Ross Farrer is 18 years old, from London and Greenwich.   He studied theatre and performing arts at college, but decided that he'd rather just run away with the circus.   Ross looks forward to advancing his acrobatic and comedy skills at the ACA.

Joe Fearn is 20 years old and hails from Birmingham.   He has several years of experience teaching and performing circus skills to children in America.   Joe looks forward to working on his acrobatic skills at the ACA and hopes to get rocking on the rola-bola.

Luke Hartley is 19 years old and lives in Kent.   He is already skilled as a self-taught unicyclist and juggler.   Luke looks forward to improving his equilibristic endeavours.

Nora Jacobs is 22 years old and comes from Kiel, Germany.   She has studied theatre and dance in such diverse places as Berlin, Vienna and Hong Kong.   Nora looks forward to creating theatrical acts involving her juggling and unicycling skills.

Sabrina Joshua is 27 years old and has lived in Wales, Florida and Watford.   She has studied dance extensively, has a degree in photography and is a certified gymnastics coach.   Sabrina is looking forward to working on her aerial skills; most particularly on the Spanish web rope.

Stephanie Randall is 18 years old and hails from Southampton.   Having grown up as a part of a circus family, she is already an equilibristic performer but has also studied catering and British Sign Language.   Stephanie looks forward to developing her aerial skills at the ACA.

Our first build-up of the circus big top went exceedingly well. The students managed to pound 118, 1-meter stakes into the ground in record time. Several blisters and one whacked foot were incurred (good thing we require steel-toed safety boots). All was accomplished in good spirits and only twenty more build-ups to go this season!

We are also putting together our costumes and props for this year’s show, which is based on an “International Celebrations” theme. Most of the acts will revolve around a holiday, festival or celebration from some part of the world. For instance, our opening number is representative of the Brazilian Carnival, complete with dancing girls, juggling boys, globe walking, stilt dancing and lots of whooping it up to South American based music. We are also working on a comedy trampoline vaulting number based on Halloween and featuring a bunch of acrobatic zombies chasing a clown Grandma. We spend approximately three hours a day rehearsing these two acts and working on presentation skills.

Aside from the show rehearsals, the students are also working on their strength, flexibility and core conditioning for 90 minutes each morning. Their favorite part is working on their splits (NOT!) They are also getting one-hour classes in tumbling, partner acrobatics, juggling skills and static trapeze. At the end of the day they fall into their bunks and enjoy the sleep of the righteous (the righteously sore and tired, that is…).

The Festival Circus opens in Didcot this year and travels to Wendover, Reading and Tooting Bec in their first month of performances.

JUNE 2006 - (Ann)

We have just finished the first month of the Academy tour and are beginning our gala season. Our first gala-performances are for children and families, sponsored by organizations such as Kid’s City (family fun-day for at-risk youth), the Barking Rotary Club (a day out for children with special needs) and the Scout Association (a huge scouting event). These galas allow the Academy to run training days during the week, with performances as the Festival Circus on the weekends. Children make for great audiences, and they not only get to watch an exciting, interactive circus show, but also try their hand at circus skills, such as juggling, plate-spinning, devilsticks, Chinese yo-yos and Western spinning ropes, in hands-on workshops led by the students and ACA staff.

All of the ACA students are performing the opening number and the comedy vaulting routine in every show, so these acts are getting smoother every day. Some students are already beginning to specialize in their chosen disciplines and to think about what sorts of skills they will need for their solo acts.

Disa has been the first of the students to put a solo act in the shows, with an aerial web-rope routine set to an Irish melody. She particularly likes the fast spin and her favorite word is “WHEEEE!”

Luke is also performing his new unicycle act, which includes juggling and skipping rope, and finishes with him balancing a football on a stackpole on his forehead, while riding a 6-foot unicycle. Pretty cool! Both of them were very nervous about their first solo appearances but made it through with smiles and guts. Well done!

We are now heading for Gosport (Portsmouth) for the HMS Sultan Summer Show.

Still, they have finally put together a schedule for cleaning out the shower room (ICK!) and still manage to get up a game of football now and then. They’re favorite evening activity is practice, practice and practice, followed closely by BARBEQUE!!! Everyone brings something to the table and, ironically, one of our vegetarians has found that she really likes being the grill-meister! Go figure…

We are currently at the Westgate School in Winchester for a cultural-arts and activities week. We spent every day working with 80 school kids, ages 10 – 14, teaching them specific circus skills and coordinating them into acts, such as juggling, plate-spinning, trapeze, unicycles, devilsticks, diabolos, acrobats, stilt-walkers and clowns. The week culminated on Friday with a big circus show that the kids performed for their entire school! The ACA students were very proud of their young performers and this type of program is a blast, both for everyone involved. It also introduces the ACA students to the educational side of the entertainment field, which is something of a growth industry.

The Festival Circus is also performing self-promo shows at the weekend here in Winchester. Stephanie and Nora went into the show with solo web-rope performances and Joe put his fabrics (silks) act in front of an audience for the first time. Paul has been performing a short comedy juggling routine with Greg at the beginning of each show and is really enjoying his auguste clown character “Moochie” (so-named, because Paul can cadge just about anything off of anybody!). All in all, the students are really coming along with their performance skills and we’re looking forward to seeing several more student acts going into the shows very soon!

AUGUST 2006 - (Ann)

At the Southsea Show in Portsmouth, we saw three new contributions: Sabrina debuted her combination act of poi and South American bolas, set to Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made For Walking”. Nora, Luke and Paul, (Known as “The Three-G’s”; 2 gingers and a German.), performed their unicycle ensemble act, including juggling, skipping rope and giraffe unicycle skills. Disa displayed her new fabrics act, set to a beautiful, traditional South American song. Finally, Ross presented a uniquely modern blend of traditional rolas and skateboarding skills, set to the music of Prodigy. At the Adlington Carnival and the Castle Fraser gala in Aberdeen, several more student acts were introduced into performances. Paul presented a comedy piece based on the traditional “fly – gag”, but played as a Kung-Fu master challenged by a buzzing insect with a black belt. Joe, Ross and Paul have also begun to perform a comedy knockabout ensemble involving two Health & Safety inspectors, a clown and a ladder (ouch!). We are currently at the Stockton-on-Tees Summer Show on the grounds of Preston Park. Elin has performed her staff and frame manipulation act in the ring for the first time today and Nora’s comedy cigar box act goes in tomorrow! We also hope to see Donald’s hula-hoops, Disa’s single-point trapeze and Sabrina’s tightwire act by Monday, so it’s been a pretty exciting few days for everyone.

Actually, with all of the new student acts going into the shows it’s been an exciting couple of weeks! The gala audiences have loved the new routines and everyone is galvanized to get their solo pieces ready for the Graduation Showcase on September 29th. Not too much longer now….!