Hi Anna, Tell us a bit about your role with The National Centre for Circus Arts. 

I’m Anna I am Senior Participation and Outreach Coordinator at National Centre for Circus Arts. I’ve worked here for 2 years and worked in circus organisations for 10 years 

What happens at the organisation?

We run circus classes. We offer a diploma in circus and a degree in circus arts. We have shows in which youth and adult students perform. We also have professional circus artist training and one-off events like our national youth circus event. It’s a very busy space with lots of things going on 

We run classes for everyone from aged 2 to adults. The classes we run for our youngest students are family circus classes in these they take part in with a parent or guardian. Then we have mixed circus classes for ages 5 to 16 where they take part in a mixture of skills like trapeze, acrobatics and juggling. When people get to the age of 11 they can apply to London Youth Circus which is our progressive training for young people in which they can choose to specialise in a circus discipline. We also have a CAT (Centre for Advanced Training) scheme where students train for around 11- 20 hours in circus a week. For Young people aged 16 plus we run a diploma course. In addition to that, we run outreach workshops at schools and community groups for people to have a go at circus. 

What activities are most popular for young people and why?

It’s hard to pick a most popular as lots of our students enjoy different things. The flying trapeze is probably one of the most popular as there are not many places in London that you can do it and it’s such an exhilarating thing to do. Also, chines pole is very popular at the moment and we have just added this as a new class for our London Youth Circus Students  

Could you give an example of a recent project you have run, and the impact it had?

This summer show we had with our London Youth Circus and Centre for advanced training students to take part in the London Youth Circus show. This was a performance they created and rehearsed for with a professional director. They didn’t have much time altogether but worked really hard to make it a success. We had 25 students performing from London, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Brighton. They performed in 4 sell-out shows over one weekend. 

Have you seen any change in the industry over the last few years?

Lots more people are wanting to try circus and getting to experience it which is great 

Do you run Arts Award?  If so, what do you offer and how can young people get involved?

Yes, we run Arts Award, last year we started Arts Award and ran it at Bronze level.  This year we are running it at Silver level. The reason we decided to run Silver was the students that took Bronze with us last year wanted to continue on to next level. We currently offer Arts Award to our London Youth Circus Students. 

Are you an Arts Award Supporter? If so, what do you offer to young people doing Arts Award?

We have just become arts award supporter so haven’t done anything yet but hope to offer circus workshops. 

Where can people find out more about the work you do?

On our website: www.nationalcircus.org.uk

Twitter: @NationalCircus

Or Instagram: @NationalCircus

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