This One Time At Circus Camp...
On Monday 5th August 2013 the NoFit State Youth Circus group and myself travelled up to Edinburgh, via an eight-hour ride in a leaky tin can on wheels, to the second annual UK Youth Circus Network Festival.
Hosted at the naturally rich and vastly immense Bonaly Outdoor Centre right on the edge of Edinburgh, this festival's purpose was to bring together 150 young people and their various group leaders from 28 different UK-based youth circus groups for a six-day long residential. Designed to teach camp goers not only circus skills but important life skills through various workshops and allowing the goers the chance to set up their own performances and workshops.
Luckily for me and many others going, this festival also coincided with the world's largest arts festival - Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2013 and NoFit State's professional show; Bianco.
I wasn't entirely sure what I expected out of this trip but then again, I had this problem the last time I went to review a youth circus show; I originally thought that I was just going to review a few classes and shows and not much else, but once again it quickly dawned on me, "that they did more than just teach kids how to juggle and dangle upside down on a thin piece of silk."
I think it's very easy to misperceive youth circus as just a bunch of stuck up spoilt middle class poncey kids prancing around (to quote Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and my Mother, "We're not posh, we're arts and crafts!"). But that couldn't be further from the truth. Other than CLIConline, I have never met a more diverse, inclusive, amazingly talented, kind-hearted and inspiring group of people in my entire life.
And one of the reasons I feel that the members of UKYCN are so unique and incredible is the fact that it's pretty damn hard to find one of these lovely, amazingly talented, kind-hearted and inspiring people who hasn't got something 'wrong' with them. I don't think I have ever seen and met so many people with dyspraxia and other neurological and mental health conditions such as autism, ADHD, depression and anxiety in one place before.
Despite my hardest efforts, my dyspraxia and gender dysphoria - and the lack of confidence I have due to it, especially with regards to my body and when it comes to sport - has discouraged me from any type of exercise (then again that could have something to do with me being a lazy little so-and-so but that's not the point! More about me being a grumpy teenager another time). But as I soon discovered, for the people at UKYNC that was no excuse. I don't think anything could stop them from hanging upside down from stuff (yes that is a technical term), mental health issue, neurological condition or otherwise. And honestly, I think that's truly incredible. To be able to produce and promote that kind of self-confidence in people, especially people who have had a hard time of it in places such as school and have even had to drop out of academia altogether due to said conditions is nothing short of mind-blowing.
I heard many stories of people who had dropped out of school or become excluded from everyone else their age, due to thing like ADHD and dyspraxia and mental health, even such petty and trivial things such as being LGBT, and had quite literally ran away and joined the circus to escape all that pressure. Escaping all that judgement and all that frustration that comes with 'the straight and narrow' path of the UK's conventional education system and just getting on and out doing something they loved.
Circus seems something that you are either born into or you run away with. As fellow reporter and general circus person Tom said it's a bit like Hotel California, "You can check out at any time but you can never leave."
Although I don't identify my home as NoFit or UKYNC, I empathise 100% with that need to get away from everything and just be yourself, to be around people who believe in and stand for the same things as you, who share your dreams and ideals, who will support you through anything and everything when no one else even bothered to give you a second glance; Hell, I think every single person at CLIConline knows what that feels like.
Hell. I think every single person needs that.
And if UKYCN and the youth circuses that attend it offer that kind of support, that kind of sanctuary, that kind of family - and trust me, I saw with my own eyes over those six days that it fully well did - then I fully believe it deserves more of a shout-out and funding than it's currently getting.
My week in Edinburgh with UKCYN and visiting the Fringe is a memory I will forever treasure as one of self-discovery, awesome people new and old, watching anime with said new friends, bizarre food, crazy gothic architecture; learning to hula hoop and to kind of handstand; staying in freezing cold teepees, falling over a lot (especially while trying to eat pizza and not seeing the ice cream sign in front of me, so I fall onto and bruise my knees and elbows horribly but still managing to save the pizza!), weird and in-depth topical discussion and debates and generally insanity.
Hey, it's almost like I was at the circus.
Thank you, everyone.
Click for more information on UKYCN, NoFit State's Cardiff-based youth circus classes, their professional show and the Edinburgh Fringe.
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