We had a fabulous day in Dunblane on Sunday 17th August when 46 young people came together to share circus and aerial skills and create performance pieces to showcase their amazing talents.
All or Nothing and Aerial Art House are currently jointly running the Scottish hub of the National Centre for Circus Arts‘ Centre for Advanced Training Scheme. As part of this programme we arranged a youth exchange event at the Dunblane Centre bringing together our performance groups from Edinburgh and Dunblane with students from Aerial Art House, Adventure Circus and Community Circus Paisley. The young people took part in workshops in aerial hoop, aerial rope, object manipulation and contortion and had the opportunity to learn more about the NCCA’s training programmes.
The day finished with a creative session where the students worked in small groups to develop a short piece using equipment of their choice and a brief based on the deadly sins! Its was great to see them trying out new skills and using their imaginations to work together creatively.
We had overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants, especially about having the chance to try new disciplines and getting to meet and work with new, like-minded people. Here are a few of the comments we received: “I really liked the variation of disciplines shown, it was a chance to try something I wouldn’t normally think of. The instructors were all really good as well”; “Really enjoyed the teamwork at the end and all teachers were super energetic”; ‘I loved meeting loads of other circus people, it was so cool and everyone is really nice!” They also told us they want to do it all again but would love more and longer sessions to really develop their skills. We’ll see what we can do next year!
A huge thank you to the National Centre for Circus Arts for all their support in making this happen.
Some of the different sessions throughout the day