The Stage

UK to host European youth circus conference

Published Tuesday 30 June 2009 at 14:40 by Lalayn Baluch

Youth arts organisation Albert and Friends Instant Circus has attracted a grant of 20,000 euros to host the UK’s first European conference for youth circus companies, which will aim to develop a lobbying strategy for the sector across the continent.

The cash for the 2009 Network of International Circus Exchange has come from the European Union’s Youth in Action programme, administered in the UK by the British Council.

The conference, which will take place in November at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios, will bring together leaders from the youth circus sector from 19 European countries. It will mark the first time the event has come to the UK.

A&FIC artistic director Ian Scott Owens, who also serves on the board of the Circus Development Agency, said: “The aim of NICE is to facilitate conversation and exchange of ideas and skills between all the participating groups.

“Out of NICE there will come a stronger form of organisation. One of the specific aims will be to lobby and to facilitate the things we talk about at the conference.”

He hopes that the lobbying strategy will help to raise the profile of youth circus and its benefits for young people in the UK, which in turn will attract more funding from the government and local authorities.

He said: “I think we have proved that youth circus is an exceedingly strong way to go - it can contribute an amazing deal to young people’s development. It’s about becoming self-aware, about becoming confident, it gives them a sense of self-worth.

“[I aim for the UK] to be like Germany, where every large town has a youth circus and it is very much part of society - it is in [young people’s] thoughts and it’s what they do.”

A&FIC is now laying plans to set up an umbrella group comprising the UK’s main youth circus organisations to represent the country at the event, and also contribute to the wider lobbying strategy. The group will initially involve six UK organisations, but could eventually include more than 20.

A&FIC was established in 1983 and is the UK’s largest circus theatre troupe in which children perform.