 My name is Frank Bench, and I'm the director of programs also at the Rundest Center. This is part two of our great day at the circus here at the Siegel Center. I think it's a sensational day, it's a day that's long overdue and of real significance. The world of contemporary theater and performance has merged closely with the world. Obvious to be the traditional circus, they both influence each other in a very new way. And it has always been the mission and the duty of art to explore what hasn't been done and what is new based on the tradition of using new technologies. And what we already saw from the screening on global contemporary circus, as well as in the Kibbe class scene shows us the potential of this new world that is out there. And as I said earlier, I feel these are messages from the future. Theater is about to come. There's an anticipation of the future that these artists have, and it's not something of the past. It will be stronger and better. And theater and performance will be stronger and better because of it. We at the Siegels Center bridge academia, professional theater, international and American theater. Yes, traditionally we do focus on playwrights, playwriting, and traditional theater, theater. Even so, we admire the work of the Castellucci's and Wilson's and Mirage of this world. But this is a day that really focuses again. We had one or two days on the circus already here, but that really puts a high light on this most significant platform. We also welcome our viewers on hell round, so this has nationally been live streamed. We also welcome our guests from circus talk and Bond Street and from Australia and Concordia and Cirque and everywhere. Also really a welcome. And the Siegels Center is trying to build bridges also between Quebec and Canada and the US. It seems so close yet it's also far away. Hard to explain to outsiders, but it's a fact. And I hope this will also bring us together as it will do with the Philadelphia and New York theater scene. It's a scene that's also emerging and coming out. And if you go to the Whitney right now, they have little babies who just as emerging artists. So these are no longer infancy. This is already very, very much ahead and perhaps not enough light has been shown on the stage of what is contemporary circus in New York and Philadelphia. I would like to introduce Vickler, who is the head of the programming. He's worked also once here at the Siegels Center. She did a discussion thanks again for Patrick for putting together this brilliant screenings and this afternoon and letting us know more about his work at his university actually with the theater schools. This is something we don't have as far as I know as strongly in the US. So let's take it away and again, welcome everybody. Yes, because it's recorded, so thank you everyone for being here and thank you so much to these wonderful panelists. So we, this program of this, today's program is co-curated by Patrick LaRue who's here, who guided us through the video program that he selected and Frank and I. As we thought through how to devote a day on this art form, we put many puzzle pieces together and for me it was quite essential to have a panel to talk about the New York City Circus and contemporary circus scene and who's doing what and what are the creations, what are the challenges, hopes, visions, expressions. And also because of what's going on in Philadelphia is actually quite extraordinary in terms of institution building and making a climate for circus that really does have some elements of sustainability in it. I invited two colleagues from Philly to come to join us for this panel so that what actually evolves as a topic is the idea of an urban ecosystem for contemporary circus and how, what are the different components, what makes New York City creations and circus community distinct right now and same for Philly and how can those two be in conversation with one another. So that's kind of the skew of this panel but for me also I, my artistic origins are in the New York City Circus community and I'm, so I have been away from it for a while and so I'm really excited to learn more myself also about kind of what's going on right now. So I want to thank especially Nikki Miller on our panel who really talk with me at length about current practices and who should be part of this conversation so thank you so much for your help Nikki. And it's been just been preparing for this panel has been very instructive for me to learn about each person's practice. So the first section of this panel discussion is going to be, I've asked each of the panelists just to give you an overview of what they're up to, what their organization or a structure is, is, is doing. So we'll kind of go through that briefly so you get the overview of who's, who's present rather than just me giving a little bio block. And then after that we'll engage in some conversations as a group and maybe we might make a semi circle instead of a line. So, but anyway for now let's start with the presentations. So there's a PowerPoint. Michael, can I just go like this to change the power? Okay, so maybe we do the next one. Okay, so this is me. And I have a, as, as Frank mentioned, I used to work here at the Segal Center. I now have a new title, which in, I basically did the English language one to be very short, but I'm just going to translate the French language one. So my job is, is called Deputy Director of Programming Development, which means Artistic Development and Touring of Contemporary of the, of Circus Arts. And what I found, it's at an institution in Montreal, which I'll discuss more in the evening panel. But one thing that was quite striking to me about my, just the job title is that, that this is not about circus arts, you know, in any particular place. It's actually the art form. And the institution I work for is the only institution in North America that is presenting contemporary circus as its sole discipline. So it's a very unique environment. And so disciplinary development is my part of my purview. And so I think that's kind of what, what we're doing here when we increase the discourse around the discipline and the art form. We're developing the discipline. Okay. Next slide. So I'm very pleased to introduce you to Stephanie. Go for it. Hello, everyone. I'm Stephanie Molsa from the Bindlesif Family Circus. We started here in New York City in 1994 as a fire-eating duo, and kind of emerged from the dirty underground New York City club scene to meet up with a lot of other artists who were interested in the circus medium. We didn't know that circus was happening in New York City, although because I knew my fifth-floor neighbor, Jennifer Miller, was making amazing political, gender-bending, poetic, do-it-yourself circus. It was, we knew it was there, but we didn't realize that there had all in one place on South 11th Street in Williamsburg, where we can't afford to live anymore. But we didn't realize that, you know, like there had been a committee at Del Arte in the 70s and what Bond Street was doing and that there were, there were a bunch of people laying tracks for us. And so, you know, like everybody in their 20s, we thought we invented it. Bindlesif toured from pretty steadily from 95 to 2001, 9-11 caused insurance and gas prices to go crazy. We no longer could go out twice a year. So we've focused on New York City and mid-Atlantic regional touring. We also, every year for 20, this will be our 25th year in 2020, have created an original ensemble, created new circus work in New York City every single year. We're a homeless company. We rent different venues every year. And in 2005, Keith and I actually purchased a home in upstate New York and we now have relationships with community and municipal bodies so that we can create work, bring artists up for residencies, and then bring it back here to perform it, because nobody can afford to do that here. Bindlesif's primary function now is three basic arms. We create and tour new work of our own with our free floating company members. Lots of you are actually in the room. We got to work with Angela on the last show. Kathy Rose has worked with us a lot. We support emerging artists through three different programs. One is a re-grant program called the First of May Award. One is the Dixon Place Bindlesif's Open Stage and one is the Cavalcade of Youth. That's for artists under 21 Ayal. And then the third is community building through social circus. We have programs that work with youth and developmentally disabled adults. I view that as community building in the sense that it's a way to anti-gentrify by moving into community, becoming part of a network of families and citizens and using circus to tie that all together. We do the next slide. Oh, sorry. I just kind of blurted everything. So this is actually a show that we produced at the Connolly Theater in the East Village. That was our third year producing at that beautiful space. Non-traditional circus space is definitely up our alley. We started out in bars, clubs, cornfields in Wichita. You name it, warehouses. And then up in the upper right hand corner are some kids from Bindlesif Circus After School program in Hudson, New York. We have three programs in upstate New York and one here in the East Village working with kids. And we're trying to cultivate relationships between kids and people who come from the community that we're working in. So the instructors are also folks from the community, not just people from the circus world. They have circus training, but they're also folks who represent the same culture and background as the students. So we're trying to focus on, I would love to see more diversity in circus. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Nikki. Okay. Hi guys. So I'm Nikki Miller. I know most of you. So up here, there's a couple photos of my work, but first I just want to give a little context for those that don't know me. So I got into circus first from theater. I've been in New York for about 12 years and been involved in this community for 11 of them. And I first got involved because as an actor, I had seen some work in London that included aerial work in its theatrical storytelling and was like, well, that's the most engaging theater I've ever seen in my life. I want to be able to do that as an actor and ended up in practice realizing that even as I developed that skill that there weren't really opportunities to audition for work like that in New York and that the only way to really make it happen would be to develop a creative practice of my own with other people who are interested in playing around with aerial theater as I've referred to it in the past. So in 2011, I met another actress aerialist named Kendall Riley who became a creative partner with me. And we started, we first tried to actually make a staging of an aerial theater, like totally deconstructed staging of Sartre's note exit that Eric was actually a part of. When I was an aerialist. Which not many people know about. Oh God. It really happened. But then it didn't happen. And so then Kendall, because it was too hard to get the rights, and it was this whole thing. So then Kendall and I basically started turning to devising work. And in 2014, we got our first grant and decided that meant we had to formalize and name ourselves. And so we became only child aerial theater, which some of you may be familiar with, and developed a show called Asylum. And that show was a devised aerial theater piece, which is the photo that's up here. Sam was in it. And it was, it went through multiple phases. We did our first phase of development. We did our very first workshop actually at Circus Warehouse and then our kind of more long form with a residency at the Old Muse location on South First Street. And we're lucky enough to get a regional opportunity to develop and premiere the show in a formal theatrical run. So we did that in 2015. And then we got to show the piece in the final Circus Now Festival at NYU Skirball in 2017. And as an organization, we were really lucky to get to kind of, because of our affiliation with theater, benefit a bit from some of the kind of pipelines that exist in the New York Theater world. In terms of work development, we became part of the New Victory Lab Works program. And that kind of gave us some rehearsal space at the New 42nd Street Studios. A challenge we faced there was that they didn't have aerial rigging. So we've been working creatively to figure out different ways to do narrative storytelling in theater. And over the last couple of years, my work has grown and expanded in a lot of different directions to the point where now I refer to what I do as interdisciplinary poetic storytelling because I don't exclusively probably want to prioritize aerial over any of the other mediums that I like to play with. So that's what I do now. We'll talk more about it later as we continue. That's me on a rope in Wonderland. Cool. Thank you, Nikki. Next slide, please. Hi, that's me. I'm Angela Buccini-Butch. A little bit about me is I stem from the dance world. I danced professionally for 23 years before I found myself working with dance companies in New York City and found myself at Elizabeth Strep's company, actually, where I started playing with fighting gravity. And that was really fun. And just all the non-traditional apparatuses and more than anything else what drew me so much to that type of work was the communication and trust that was necessary to work in that way. And I found myself kind of tiptoeing out of the dance world and getting higher and higher into the circus world and living between those two worlds. I'm very fortunate that I got to work with a lot of international companies for Zabruta, which stems out of Argentina. I was part of their show in New York City for five years. And then I got to internationally tour with them and also work with Strange Fruit from Australia. And all of these works and shows that I tend to be a part of are somewhere between that world of circus and dance. And it's very much so about raw emotive, getting the audience to feel something within a skeleton. So I find that's the world I'm most comfortable in living and creating. So I started my own company called A.B. Cirque. And a lot of our works are with live music. We tend to work with full orchestras or string quartets. And we do a lot of narrative and storytelling where we break the fourth wall. We do it in very non-traditional ways. Often people are not even in chairs. They're walking around or seated on the floor. Or we just like to make the show happen all around them. And A.B. Cirque resides at the Muse Brooklyn, which is our circus hub. The Muse was created based on the name. We wanted a hub for creation. And we wanted a place that really focused on collaboration, cooperation over competition. A lot of what I found in New York didn't feel right to me. And I wanted to make sure that people could grow together and really train and create alongside each other without feeling that they had to compete. Because I think we can all rise together. Should we change to the next slide? Oh, go for it. So that's my company. On the left, those are some of my professional company members. And the picture on the right is for a massive immersive production that we had done a long time ago in installation. Yeah, so more about the Muse. Our focus is really on community. We're kind of like a circus community center. We have recreational programs all the way through pre-professional training programs, which preps people to go off to train at other schools. And like I mentioned, our focus is on creation. And we have an artist in residency program, which Nikki kind of already touched on. And Juanita has also done some residency stuff at the Muse and created. But where we provide space to artists allowed them to get their shows up for the first time. And a huge piece of the Muse is actually working towards children's rights to free play and children's advocacy. So we do a lot of adventure playwork with circus elements integrated between. And we really believe that that's a key part of education. And yeah, so I could talk for years about that. So I'll stop right there. Cool. Thank you. Next slide, please. That's me. Hi friends and seem to be friends. I guess my most official title would be Creative Director of Visceral Obstructions, which is an artist collective of sorts. I come from a visual arts background, which is why Visceral Obstructions was a joke that only I understood and I'm stuck with it. I teach trapeze. I'm a puppet maker. I'm a custom designer. I teach people how to sew. I've made stuff for a bunch of you guys. We started this project because a couple of friends and I kept talking about things we wanted to make and making a show and making a show and eventually we decided, well, we're going to book a date and put a show together and slowly have been getting other friends involved that didn't expect to be tied to this massive undertaking. Eric Schmollenberger right here has been in lots of the shows. In the last one he played a used condom. Maya is also part of it and he was amazing. So yeah, so the work that we created is created collaboratively. I'm the director but everyone contributes their talents, their ideas. The circus part of it as in the puppetry and the costumes, it's all in the interest of storytelling. So the aerial act, well as you can see, this is me being barfed out of a shark, which we could call circus or you could call it whatever you want. This is from Sex Ed where we're all in the last scene having orgy and catch crabs from our love sick pubic crab. At the core of all the shows that we've created, it's all really about human relationships and love and the desire to find love and community and whatever, all masked under absurdist puppetry and you know it's a pubic crab that's really heartbroken because you can't find love, you know? All the other stuff, you know, adds to it. I'm a terrible attacker in public so I think I'm good. Thank you. This is me. I'm Eric Schmallenberger. I have a show called Blunderland that is a resident show at House of Yes, which is a nightclub in New York City that does a lot of circus. House of Yes, I have been with for about a decade since we were very much in illegal space and you know one burnt down, another one we got kicked out, the landlord realized we'd built a third floor whatever. So I got my start in clowning and found clown school to be so horrifying and deeply emotionally traumatizing that I stopped performing altogether, started working in an art gallery where I met this woman named Kembra Fowler who was an incredible human being and told me she's a east village like rock and roll punk goddess and she told me that if I ever went back to performing I had to show people something new otherwise my audience should kill me. So when I started performing again it was a lot of stuff coming out of performance art and like little inklings of clowning started working with House of Yes, all of a sudden had circus capabilities, thought I would try getting into the air, wasn't that good at it, I can't touch my toes, but really started developing this sort of surrealist queer circus and involving things that I would see in in clubs, nightlife meant a lot to me, I like going out so I started involving like things that I saw at the drag clubs and at the cabaret clubs and inviting Joe's pub artists to be on the same stage as circus artists and then you know started inviting people that I saw at sex parties to perform and so now I have a show where you can see aerialists and singers and very comedic and sweet tender fisting acts. This is me so in the state of show them something they haven't seen before this is me mounting the face of an audience member it was very consensual and that is my show is also in New Orleans and London seasonally New York up all the time and this is Julie Atlas Muse in our London show making a peanut butter sandwich for some unsuspecting audience member so I found it very interesting to combine sort of underground club culture and all of that with circus in an attempt to surprise people. I don't involve myself with family entertainment at all. I think children are very cute not interested other people other people that's all. Thank you very much. Next slide. Oh that's me. Hi I'm Ben Grenberg and I'm here representing circadian school of contemporary circus which is the nation's first Fedek certified school of higher education in circus in the United States. Currently Fedek is the is a French and European association of circus schools of degree granting circus schools and circadian is a three year program which currently grants the same kind of certificate that you get from going to beauty school or to another vocational school but is hoping to become a BFA program eventually. And we have 30 students right now and I serve as the head of performance and artistic craft which means that I wear a lot of hats administratively and as a educator. I teach physical theater and also run an auto core which is really the core of circadian's curriculum every week students need to create a new piece for faculty critique. They function completely independently as in the tradition of physical theater schools and look cock pedagogy creating completely by themselves and then it's only at the end of the week that we watch in addition to hours and hours and hours and hours of other coursework of course. So I also run a work in progress series and the circadian presents program which is trying to create opportunities for emerging circus artists in Philadelphia through a work in progress series and little micro grant opportunities and residency space at circadian in the building and I also have a company called Almanac Dance Circus Theater and we actually were together at Circus now in 2017 at the last contemporary circus exposure and I came to circus through physical theater. I was actually a member of the first graduating class of the pig iron school for advanced performance training which is olacock based program in Philadelphia and so I had the experience of being a student in an emerging program as it was sort of being developed and had that experience of being the guinea pig first class and so now I'm on the other side of that equation with the circus students who are not circadian yeah who are guinea pigs for for us now there's another slide I just wanted to do the next thing yeah you can see on the the big picture here is actually a student work that was created through the circadian presents series where we give them funding a little bit of funding some mentorship and space to create a show for the Philly Fringe Festival every year and so this was one of the shows made for this year's Philly Fringe Festival called 4.18 a.m. which was based on an album and those are all current second and third year students at circadian performing and then just some other slides of Almanac's work in Philadelphia thank you next week hi I'm Katie Dammers I'm one of the artistic producers at Fringe Arts which is a large-scale non-profit theater that does a whole host of interdisciplinary performing arts in Philadelphia and so we were founded in 1997 actually as a fringe festival very much in the style of Adelaide or Edinburgh and are have grown to be one of the largest fringe festivals in the United States and so as Ben mentioned circus is always included in the fringe festival both through independent artists like students and other local circus artists Almanac is often in fringe which is great and then we also do present circus as part of our curated sector of the festival as well and Circa was part of that two years ago we've also presented seven fingers in the last three to four years we've undergone a large-scale strategic plan and have moved more broadly into a number of festivals throughout the year so not only do we do the fringe festival in September we also started a comedy festival last year and we started a circus festival in 2018 called hand-to-hand and so in its first year we presented barcode which is a young emerging circus company from Canada and we did their first piece called sweat and ink and last year we had Kompania Bakala from Switzerland so the circus festival as it exists now and as Ben was talking about guinea pigs I think we are certainly using our audience members in a similar way you know the circus festival is in its beginning years and is very much aligned with circadian as Ruth talked about we see Philadelphia as a really exciting urban ecosystem for the support of circus and having a training center and a young and exciting group of emerging artists within the city is a huge part of that and so if we look at the next slide you'll see some images from the past year's festival so so far the festival has been focused around these international at least thus far international presentations of circus which run for a couple performances across a weekend and then is kind of capped off with what we call the circus midway program which you can see behind me so fringe arts has a really beautiful theater and restaurant space right on the water and there's a beer garden right next to it that we turn into with the help of circadian teachers and students into a place for people to experience the circus arts one thing that we're really leaning into with the circus festival that I hope will evolve and change but at least in its beginning is really its child friendly and family nature we really see it as a way to grow our audiences to give back to the community and also to introduce audiences to a contemporary art form that we hope might lead them into others like dance and physical theater and cabaret all of which we do as well year round but most of the programming that we do year round is not appropriate for children so this is an exciting arena for us because our cabaret much like yours you know involves acts that would not be appropriate for young people so the midway is a great opportunity to introduce young folks and to work with them in free programming other things that happen in the circus festival are a local showcase that Ben curates which is related to his emerging circus in progress series called test flights and in the next couple of years we're looking forward to growing the festival and a big part of it is our partnership with tofu and Ruth which is great to develop continued international partnerships throughout North America and further field and then we also hope more broadly to work with our local government and person rec department to do more outdoor accessible free performances because we find that even though contemporary circus is rather new in the states and in Philadelphia people do have a often nostalgic understanding of it whether that comes from Cirque du Soleil or the greatest showman so we feel like it's a great way to grab people and bring them in well thank you let's let's scoot a little I'm going to scoot backwards and maybe those on the edges could stay where they are and then does that work so I wondered if can we go to the next slide please okay so these are just some some questions for discussion and we have some good time to to kind of delve into these and it's and we'll also ask for your questions as well but I wonder if we could if we could kind of start off I don't in general want to ask kind of go down the line with everybody answering the question but I think for the first question I am going to ask for that which is if you think about the urban if we can use that idea of the ecosystem what's what's your read on the ecosystem currently in New York and in Philly where are the you know where are the gaps where are the strengths you know what what would what do we what's your snapshot on that just briefly can can we can each person please answer that Stephanie can you start thank you start okay that's from where you're coming just from where you stand at right now well Bindelstift straddles two counties at this point because we can't afford to make work in New York City or even store our equipment in New York City so we the ecosystem as I see it for me is very fractured I am spending most of my time in upstate New York mostly doing you know administering and teaching in the social circus and community building programs and Keith is my co-founder and partner is here in New York City and sort of like managing the artistic and creative end of Bindelstift and he's the one that you mostly see an interface with at open stage or you know events around New York City so I you know unfortunately I feel like that's a sad truism about making work and I you know those of you who have your own spaces are so fortunate but there's also a arm load of headaches that go with that so that's you know the other thing I do really need to address is the gentrification issue and you know as circus artists we need big spaces we need you know open high ceilings so we tend to move into those fringy areas that then become really chic and hip and we get priced out so in the meantime you know we're sort of incur making incursions into space that somebody else's and then we get sort of incur incursion is made upon upon us so I think that's I don't see that as a horrible thing I see that we need to be able to have like a fluid sort of cellular exchange between the communities that we're moving into and the communities that we now find ourselves a part of can can we also include in the snapshot the commercial side of things and larger institutional because I know you have also that's part of everyone's life also can you can you include that in your snapshot too about becoming and you know just like like a you know more for-profit or larger scale circus with most expansively like uh well spindle stiff is a non-profit and our financial support is dependent upon state funding from New York State Council of the arts New York City funding from DCA we partner with municipalities with school systems with organizations that are working in communities like the mental health association like the ARC and so we we try to find ways to share resources and find funding streams in order to be able to provide services because I and I say provide services because I really see circus as an entity that delivers something to a community in addition to bringing you know brain food and soul food in the in form of our performances like it's our duty and our job to create an audience to to educate an audience to to make work for artists and for technicians and for filmmakers and photographers you know administrative workers and so I feel like there's what was the other thing I just kind of fell down the sinkhole but yeah I think you know there's a multifaceted multi multi pronged way that we should fit into a community and that includes not just like finding an adequate space and making some money on tickets we have to give back and in in so doing we root ourselves much more strongly in those communities make people interested you know receive influences that are vital to us as artists me well coming out of nightlife as I do I look out at the places where circus can happen in the city and it seems to happen in theaters in nightclubs and corporate events and and it's a funny thing because you know the they're very very different things and I think that people in the community have a tendency to divide them up into like well this is how I make my money and this is how I this is the art that I want to make and this is night club is whatever the nightclub is and I think that the possibilities of nightlife in New York have actually expanded over the past couple of years and the spaces more interested in involving circus arts and the large companies willing to put money into well not really into circus arts but into you know here's here please perform monkey so it for the first time it seems more possible if you sell out a little bit to actually live in this very expensive city as a circus artist which is a rare thing to say I'm kind of saying something very different than you I'm sitting here I'm like Bacardi please give me money which I wish I didn't have to say but having having a theater to work in has been incredible and given me an opportunity to create a show that I've been able to take out of New York City and it has only been through taking it out of New York City that more opportunities have happened in New York City like once I started leaving New York suddenly I was more valued in New York which was a very funny thing to find out they're like oh people care about you in other places where it's cheaper to perform that's nice so I have no idea what I'm trying to say nightclubs are good incubators I think is what I'm trying to say yeah so I also work in nightlife and it's also provided a platform for me especially the first show that we did we did at slipper room and because I've worked there for so long and I have a relationship with them it was a very small investment and basically do whatever you want and that is a huge thing in New York because I don't have anything and most of my collaborators are individual adults with jobs so we all come together because we have a need to create work but we don't have the luxury of being like we went to circus school together for 10 years and like that's not that's not reality but I also I feel like I stand in a very very lucky place where aside from performing I also teach at the news so I I work with all my friends we are either like also teachers or students who are incredible and like you know they we start working together I also teach people how to sew I make things so I feel like I my ecosystem has like all these little legs where I'm connected to people that I admire and I respect and so it's a back and forth of people hiring me to do things and then they get integrated into my work and it's like a constant conversation and what Eric's saying about nightclubs as well it's like yeah the corporate jobs and the working at the club it subsidizes everything else getting to make a giant puppet for a gig then enables me to use that for my shows I feel like the network of support is in human relationships and in friendships and in the generosity that people give each other because we all so desperately want this to exist so we're constantly like building the ground like the each step it's kind of like you know you make it and then you go to the next one kind of together I mean Nikki Miller everyone you know so many people here that could be like and you did this and you did this um so uh I don't know if that clarifies it but nightlife it helps a lot because you know no one's handing out free theaters or rehearsal spaces or you know I know that but I will say this is an important thing about New York and how a lot of us are able to train is that teaching gives us free space to train like at the music and other places um I think without that I personally would not have anywhere to develop work or to continue growing as as an artist um yes and to everything that's been said I think what Juanita points on with the relationships is a really important thing to note when talking about ecosystem here because um from my perspective of like I say I've been involved in this world for about a decade and I've been involved in a lot of different contexts for different durations of time and different degrees of involvement um which has illuminated a lot in terms of how these spaces function individually and how these spaces and communities function uh in conversation with each other so the reason that I'm even able to be here is literally because of the relationships that I have with with individuals and with spaces um I think that those are sort of the two most the two most important assets um to any of us are our relationships with each other and our relationships to the spaces in which we can teach train create um process and share and develop work there's not really a culture around process in New York City uh so there is definitely one of you know one of the ways that things function here is um you know as Juanita mentioned is like booking a deadline and working with what you have to meet that deadline um my experience with that has been you know again speaking to relationship um a lot of the early work that I made was made possible because folks like Susie Winston at Circus Warehouse or Angela at the Muse would see me really like tinker in a way at something and be say you know and I'd be like I really want to try this thing with like that you know piece of furniture and you know this thing like I want to do a site specific kind of use your app or I like I didn't pay for a single silk or a caraviner or you know time for years because of these relationships and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the generosity of you know Juanita helping with costume making early on Eric donating time to be in the first workshop of a show that didn't even happen um you know things like that so right now like Juanita saying I think that we function out of a very um sort of sincere and like gut level enthusiasm um that's not particularly organized and not particularly rooted in any kind of financial structure that is um nameable or sustainable uh and you know really nightlife is the space in which um works in progress can be shown if they are works in progress that work within that context and that's something that I go back and forth between is you know deciding for myself how much of my work fits in that space and how much of it may not ever or may not yet and understanding how and where I can show my works in progress for audiences and understanding what who the audiences even are and how they want to engage with us because right now the spaces in which they get to do that tend to be nightlife or you know bam new victory uh Lincoln Center kinds of spaces which obviously have an accessibility barrier um and then every once in a while sometimes the park you know Monique Martin for a long time was working with programming circus and summer stage which was a really uh important thing I think up in Harlem but that isn't to my understanding happening to the degree that it was for a few years when circus now was a little bit more robust um so uh I think that we I think that our ecosystem is finding itself in terms of functionality and right now that it's like kind of feels like a bunch of little lily pads kind of far apart that like like could anchor somewhere and have a root system but like don't and there's like frogs that are trying to hop between them sort of figuring out how they can like bring them closer together but like don't really know and then you lose your friend over there and like it's it's still finding itself is my uh observation and experience that's very evocative uh visual oh my god that's how I it's how I do interdisciplinary poetic storyteller I think that's really interesting question about how if nightlife is an incubator um what is the impact on what it incubates is really interesting question and also the the the question between what when you were telling the story history of spindle stiff Stephanie and you talked about you know this question of subversion and nightlife and like how is is what's happening now as subversive as when you guys were starting you know some interesting um okay thank you yeah I mean a lot of this has already been tapped on and I don't want to like re-drill the wheel too much but I do think that the ecosystem here is a bit fractured as Stephanie said in the sense that there is this niche that is well supported because you have a bar or something that could sustain the venue and unless your work is that specific kind of audience or can fit into that kind of space it it struggles a lot more so I think the nightlife scene here in New York City is pretty booming and there's a lot of opportunity for that but it is a small niche and a small portion of it um like I said my work is extremely immersive and eats up space and has oversized apparatuses even when I try to create something small to see what work it doesn't happen and we also do a lot of work for children and we are in a space that we don't have a legalized bar so we can't sustain the work and count on alcohol to support it um one of the benefits of the ecosystem in New York City is that you have access to corporates and we can do um larger scale castings or commercials or things like that that can help fund the space or will have Broadway rentals or will um help stunt crews do special effects for flying um so those are the kind of things where I can take a job at Radio City for a few months and that's how we have all of our crash pads um I can literally walk through the space and tell you which contracts I had to take to pay for what things are in this space um but it would be wonderful to be able to actually just work at my studio and run my company but I can't I have to constantly be looking for the next contracts to actually fund it and fuel it and make it work and I think that comes down to the sustainability it's not sustainable um and I don't want to be bringing that dark cloud over it but things are getting pushed further and further out and it becomes a question are we causing the gentrification because we keep going to these other neighborhoods and then they become cool and popular and then you know we get pushed out the people that live there get pushed out and I've just seen in the past decade a lot of things get kind of pushed out but nightlife is booming so to me it's a very fractured ecosystem and that it's just a bit imbalanced at the moment of what can sustain um but wait one other positive on the other flip side the corporates are really good because you can get that money the other really positive thing about New York City is um the international influx of artists that do come in and so one really beautiful thing um that we've had access to is bringing artists in for workshops and different flavors from all over the world and helping um have our teachers even get other coaching and our artists and our students grow and be exposed to all these different things because New York City is such a hub for people to pass through so that's one huge perk of the ecosystem here um maybe before we go on to the Philly perspectives do you have you guys seen um artists um have blocks where the ways that are available the means that are available to develop the work that they want are just not there so they either change what they make or they go somewhere else okay um well one group that's not represented here today is the group from fifth wall studio which is a group of harness uh flying harness dance folks who kind of came out of the Delaguarda for the bridge lineage who um have their own space and built an entire show that they literally were you know I mean you attended it showing out of their apartment um so you know because that show includes harnesses and water and all of these like crazy technical elements that no space was willing to um to risk I guess or or something so they ended up finding out how they could create that within their own living space which is a pretty extraordinary living space to be real um and did their show that way but there's plenty of examples even of solo artists who um you know just have ideas and can't share them uh you know I mean there's so many things Juanita I feel like that's all of us in a way like what is available and that's what you're working with I mean there's there's an abundance of ideas but not so much of um spaces or time or possibilities so I think and but I think that's that's really rich in a way because you just gotta make it work there's and you can't take a year to think about how you're gonna cross the space back and forth which would be amazing it's a dream but it's just not the case yeah I mean like one more thing I just want to add too is that the first show that we made asylum we thought it was just gonna live in the old music south first street and never move on and so we used the walls and we used the piano and we like had the rigging that was okay this one's that far away from that one so we're gonna tie the silks together this way and then the show got brought to North Carolina and we had to adapt it for this completely different space without having any sense that we were ever gonna tour the show because we had built it without even considering that it would have a lifespan and then we went to NYU Skirball which was completely opposite of the North Carolina venue and had to adapt it all over again um in a four hour tech and load in so I think that you know yeah there you go I think another thing that's very interesting is because because of the limitations that you find in New York City and because America in general is not a country that that really develops circus in the same way that other countries do like Canada UK Australia it's me for example going to London going to I'm taking my show to Adelaide I don't really have any very many American companies to look up to to because people are so in the grind sometimes in New York that they don't think of the possibility of the of the circus in the larger context and and the festivals that are out there the possibilities that are out there um you get so caught up sometimes and I think like I have to make this work I have to make this work I have to like keep doing this grind and there isn't a network in the United States of circus venues the way that there is uh of circus capability like we don't have a lot of Spiegel tents here we don't have all of these things that exist in Europe and in Australia and in Canada and I think that that uh just the mentality of that and not having people to look up to really uh stifles in a way the possibilities of some young creative people in New York building things because they don't know they've never met like the like briefs company or or any of these other touring companies that do incredible things and travel so much and so they just hold themselves back not knowing what's out there so exposure and connection would help yeah absolutely do you guys want to go far I can jump on that bandwagon for sure um I yeah I recently went into the Edinburgh Fringe with a show this this past French for the first time and that experience it's a lot was so eye-opening because I think there are so many I actually think there are so many American circus artists making work which is at an international level but who just don't have the resources to be able to go there and so tell themselves that they can't and there's a story that we tell ourselves about the quality of our artistic work which is that it's less than because we're not able to go to those festivals and we're not able to get that exposure so I wish I had gone six years ago seven years ago I wish I'd gone with my first show uh and so to any young artists who may be here go go get that exposure go internationally go to Mexico there's amazing circus just like a 200 dollar plane ticket away uh just yeah um and in terms of like an arts ecosystem I think in Philadelphia we have a lot of the same challenges but we're not uh quite so squeezed I always say that Philadelphia is an ideal place to be making work because space is much cheaper uh and we have some resources especially uh in the last 15 to 20 years there were a lot more funders that existed in Philadelphia and they're sort of moving away or changing their priorities now but um it's possible it's possible to live it's possible to spend time making work in Philadelphia and then we're an hour and a half drive to here to be able to show and collaborate and so uh we're lucky or for that reason but the same problems of gentrification of being chased out of the spaces that we create all exist and um yeah it's a real it's a real question of how we we deal with that and acknowledge that and I think it's really important for institutions especially larger institutions like circadian to be in dialogue with the communities that uh our presence is impacting and influencing we exist in a decommissioned Catholic church um and there wasn't a lot of circus in the community that we came into which is one of the reasons why we think it's really important to have events like test flights and uh programs that are free and open to the community that can sort of not just say hey come buy tickets exactly but this is what we're doing here and can we be in dialogue with everyone who has already been in this space and the only thing I want to say is I think siloing or saying we're circus therefore uh is not really useful and at least for me as an artist and for circadian as well the more that we're able to make partnerships with other institutions uh for example we've been commissioned to make works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art several times uh and that's not work that explicitly looks like circus or calls itself circus but is circus is contemporary acrobatics and the more that we can sort of open up our ideas of what it means to be a circus artist or what this is circus this is dance this is theater but to just say what is possible and uh how can I yeah just be creative and adapt to the opportunities that are present I think that's that's something that uh makes an ecosystem feel really nice is when you open it up and you say okay maybe we don't have the things that we wish we had but we do have other things and our communities are actually faster than we think they are then can you also address the you have one pig iron and then now two schools generating artists and are they sticking around what's the impact of the schools for what is the impact of artistic training in this area have on the artistic community yeah absolutely so I think it's a pretty even mix of pig iron graduates that stay in Philadelphia and it's a little bit different now that pig iron is an accredited mfa program so there's more students who are coming for just the training and then leaving to go back to various different communities but I think I think it's had a huge impact on the Philadelphia arts landscape and we're hoping that circadian will have a similarly amazing impact even just the foundation of the school actually has attracted some other contemporary circus companies to uh because faculty are teaching there we're able to get some coaches and artists from other places to come move to Philadelphia 3am theater is a company that exists in Philadelphia um other other contemporary circus companies from around the country are saying oh hey maybe Philadelphia is a great place to go and as soon as we graduate our first class I think we're going to see that some of those students are going to want to stick around and start making work and that's that's really exciting well Katie yeah I think this balance of cross collaboration and interdisciplinary relationship is really great in Philadelphia there I think one thing that's really a strength in our local circus artists is that it's so interdisciplinary it was interesting like hearing Patrick speak earlier today about the work that he's doing in Canadian schools and I think we in America are already doing a lot of that work because our students come from a more hybrid education that pulls equally from cabaret and physical theater and music training and dance as much as it does from circus so in that way the future feels really bright to me that there's really exciting contemporary work that's like being trained and then fostered in Philly and I think as a circus programmer in Philadelphia I have like two goals that I'm always trying to balance both like bringing in the international artist to serve as like an exciting opportunity for people to see and get inspired in and to share ideas across but also to support our local artists and American circus more broadly and I feel like that is one thing that's really missing in Philadelphia right now is the funding for our local people most of the institutions that Ben alluded to are very enticed by the international folks and frankly the type of work that international artists are making in circus is larger and perhaps in some people's minds more exciting because of that scale and that scale is only possible because they've had training and residencies and things like that so sometimes that cycle feels like it perpetuates itself and so I am excited with circadian and all the work that's happening in New York and I hope some things that we can start to do at fringe as well to develop residencies and development support because often in Philly and more broadly there feels like a gap between someone who has self-produced a circus show maybe in our fringe festival and done it at circadian or in an outdoor location and then the work that we show in hand to hand our circus festival right now so seeking to kind of further flesh out that ecosystem so that there are multiple levels of development and sustainability. Can I add something in response to that? So something that that makes me think of is this question that I've been asking a lot in general and I feel could have value to us as an ecosystem more broadly is one of is the questions that are being asked when programming work when making work and when engaging with work I think that there's often an emphasis put on the what and the who and not maybe necessarily as much on the why or the how it's being made or how it's functioning and I think that those are really interesting questions when it comes to art and also when it comes to community engagement and that I just sort of want to offer that as like something to sort of non in general about how we yeah just for something to us for us to think about for ourselves and then in relationship to each other that maybe could address that no just just sort of like because Katie was referring to the fact that the the local institutions are very enticed by international groups you know they're probably being enticed by who it is what you know what's in it as opposed to necessarily why it exists or how it's being made or who it's for which are questions that might direct them to other folks as well I want to open up to the audience also we have a lot of amazing brilliant people in the audience so any questions you might have if you should Frank do we have someone talk into the mic or do we repeat yeah we need to have them out okay I could yeah since you're the most one so please feel free to open to your questions and also if you guys have questions for the you know if each city wants to ask each other questions that would be great too so would anyone like to ask any questions yeah first of all I just like to say that every time I meet anybody from the American the North American particularly the New York circus scene oh sorry I'm your on from circa I just want to say that every time I meet anyone from New York particularly mostly where I meet them from they just work extraordinarily hard and it's something that we recognize and admire from a distance so thank you for that extraordinary blood and sweat and tears to make this ridiculous thing happen I guess my question is on a kind level is like why and what's the end game why and what's the end game why because why else are we alive I think Juliet was muse the peanut butter sandwich maker who's a genius I wish he was here with us today said this to me once which I really hold on to and to saying like sometimes the work that's being made in New York is interesting because the people making it are making it because they need to because nothing is with you you know you don't have time it's expensive you're not making it mean it's just but you have to and it's like I don't know why otherwise it's it does not I mean it's very for me personally it's very joyful it's the best thing in the world but also you know like I don't know what the end game is other than for me at least and I think for a lot of us to expand the world that we live in so that more work can be created and so that maybe one day it's not such a terrible struggle but just you know the more we create things and expand spaces and like show people like yeah this this is a thing that exists that can continue to grow then I mean that's that's my goal I'm really inspired by these two sisters who are sort of social justice warriors and authors and podcasters and educators Adrienne Marie Brown who's the author of Emergent Strategy which I have in my bag which I will hold up later if you want it is a book that I recommend that everyone in this room read she also wrote a book called Pleasure Activism and her sister Autumn Brown is this really amazing facilitator as well and I was recently listening to a podcast episode that they did on their podcast how to survive the end of the world and it was an interview with autumn about this concept of the solidarity economy and she was speaking to the ideas of basically alternative forms of of economic structuring outside of kind of the individualistic like patriarchal white supremacist capitalist traditions of America and it was really compelling and one of the things that she spoke to that I think is relevant in this moment is among well everything but specifically to what you're saying about an end game is that the only way for us to really create anything better is it to it's something that we can conjure within ourselves and then practice and put out in the world and then from us it can all grow and I think that's something that like you know we certainly talk about a lot as teachers and then you know Juanita has done a lot of student shows that have been like a really good example I think of this kind of growth of just sort of inviting creativity to spread into more places there's a bit there you know 10 years ago when I started it was Tanya Gagne and like Bobby Hedgland Taylor and like Bindle Stiff and like a couple other folks and that was kind of it and then you know now we represent maybe a fifth of the things that are going on in this city so I think the end game now that we've started to sort of plant a lot of roots is to find out how to actually be a functional ecosystem that can grow in a really generative way for future generations for me yeah maybe I'll circus amok hold on hold on I just wanted to I know superstar is gonna shine some light on this but I also want to say that the the circus scene in America needs us to to water it and feed it and I think that the American public needs to be reminded that this is something that they should watch that they should participate in that's part of their community that's part of the economy that's part of culture and you know there's this very long tradition in Europe in Latin America maybe in Australia I'm not sure I'm not familiar with where the origins of your circus culture are but here it's very new and the roots are shallow and it's not perceived as high art it's not something that is on people's lips and when a movie like you know the greatest showman comes out all of a sudden everybody knows what circus is but it really goes so much deeper you know it's this ancient tradition of people getting together in a darkened space to share the magic of the ring and that's why it is the first worship it's the first miracle it's the first transcendent human experience of beyond the body beyond laws of gravity and it's life changing so that's why and I think the end game really is like not only do we collaborate and we find joy and and like vibrancy and collaborating together but the the idea of um of inviting journalists and reviewers and more academicians and educators and therapists and that's what's really cool about what's happening today as well is that the circus lifestyle and philosophy is kind of informing care and and work with students and yeah it's just kind of that's why that's the end game I just want to say that just from an international perspective the absence of like a ministry of culture here you know in the absence of any kind of cultural policy that's actually trying to like take care of our culture uh is a big you know the fact that everyone's sort of on it on their own is related to that it's like you know there's not I mean yes there are grants project grants but but there's not like a there's not a cultural policy that's sort of saying you know we have to develop our cultural expression beyond the commercial product and so the thing is that venues American venues are bringing lots of international artists over because their countries have departments of state and cultural ministries that support international touring and we don't and so the option of just picking up and going to London or going to Adelaide means that you save 10 grand and you pay your I'm a no-profit organization touring has turned me into a no-profit organization that really quickly APAP is working really hard and Monique Martin has been a really big part of bringing circus to and presenters together and that's the question I have for all of us like where are the venues where are they they should be here I do want to say that the reason that those countries are exporting their companies is for the reason I just said the reason is because they invest in their culture and they want it's a cultural diplomacy move that they would pay the for that export it's not just sales it's it's about you know we care what our artists are making because that's our culture and then we want to share that culture abroad and that's what America just doesn't do it doesn't invest it doesn't make that's not a there's no one taking care of that at a government level Jennifer do you want to well Frank wanted me to say something so I think the question is why does so I work with a circus or run a company called circus amuck and we make free political outdoor queer circus which we'll talk about later but I think I once thought that there was some sort of end game which had to do with social change and social change is not an end game but it is something that we must continue to engage in to push back against the evil hater forces that are constantly pushing us in that direction so for us we're out there to make community to bring joy because we feel the need to be together and when we were younger jump on top of each other and such but we're out there for in part because we believe that so theater and circus use of popular forms is very functional in terms of making work out in public to engage in and be part of the movements for social justice so that's why we're doing it we'll talk more about that later. Arianna? Yes hi my name is Gypsy I'm from the Seven Fingers but I am originally actually American and grew up in the States via the San Francisco Mime Troop and the Pickle Family Circus out on the west coast. Not just west coast but that old school feel which actually I really feel in the room today like I really feel like I'm actually seeing some of the same energy and force and creative and political and social creativity that was happening back then so that is really inspiring and really touching. I was curious I had two questions and they're almost futile but I'll ask them anyway how many of you have actually applied for government money or funding in the work that you've done and how much private funding say with private companies for projects? Applied or received? Yeah exactly I would actually even have just said applied because one of the you know obviously having expatriated many years ago was very much and this is very shameful I feel on my part or it's not something that I'm necessarily proud of but I was at the age the ripe age of 18 very clearly interested in getting the hell out of here so that wouldn't have to fight to try the things that I wanted to try so unknowingly I just hopped from socialist country to socialist country where art was supported and where culture needed to thrive and grow just like science or literacy or music or other forms of culture. Circus had a place there even though it wasn't as large a space that it had now there was still a larger understanding that as a culture we not only need to invest in healthcare and education we also need to invest in the growing mind and creativity and that is through creativity and risk-taking that we will actually be able to evolve in other departments like science and politics and communication and all of those wonderful things so I you know I basically bailed and you guys are playing the hard game so I definitely lots of respect there I do think however and this is we god forbid we get into a political conversation but I also believe that government is not other and asking and demanding and helping people to understand why that support is needed and why as you were saying Circus is so important for the community the adult community the the ever-growing incredible expression of gender and self community all of these from from youth to adult expression Circus is an incredible vehicle for that and to be able to to continue to ask for that money and to ask people who are working in government or in finance and making them understand why these things pay back to their corporate communities to their gentrified communities and to their government communities why it is a key element is something that it I think is very difficult to continue to ask and be denied but perhaps together asking as a larger community and that's I definitely something that on piece has done for Canada us coming together as companies to ask has shown the importance and the impact of not series of individuals but a community of individuals that that create a group a larger group thank you we have about 10 minutes left so I just I think Arianna you want me can go a little bit over time okay but okay basically um do you want to and then we have some questions for internally yeah Arianna hi everyone my name is Arianna Hellerman I have been an independent producer but I currently am in charge of programming for the downtown Brooklyn partnership which is the business improvement district in downtown Brooklyn but we manage all of the public space in the area so we have six plaza spaces and so Circus is a very high priority for us so I want to know all of you but that's and I've worked with some of you we had spindle stiff we closed down a street for three consecutive weeks and our theme for one of those weeks was Circus so we had unicyclists and we had stilt walkers and we worked with Susan we had seer wheel so it's definitely something that we want to explore and I know Ruth and she's been advocating so we're getting there um I think from the presenter perspective to your question I think this is me um but I think we're scared because it's like trapeze how do I like get a trapeze in my space granted I'm not a traditional presenter I'm not in a performing arts center um or like just just infrastructure it's something I think that we don't know about we don't know what costs are we don't know um how like it's just brand new and I think like maybe this is even something for APAP Ruth but like an education like Circus 101 what it takes to present Circus it might have been done before but I think like that that's like the number one thing for me where it's like I don't even understand what costs are I don't understand the mechanics of all of it so we do have so we do have some presenter training stuff that we're we're doing and um and the the tohu's um tech uh head of tech in production actually came to APAP to give a talk about about this and you have a marketplace in I run a mark uh international contemporary circus market in the summer in Montreal which everyone should come to just as a fellow presenter I want to say I totally understand where you're coming from there and I actually have found Circus to be among the many disciplines that we work at that fringe the easiest which might sound strange because we do have to take out an additional insurance policy but we found with all the circus artists that we work with circadian in particular but our international folks as well that they often do their rigging themselves and are I think among the most like self-disciplined self-starter artists that we ever work with they always send the most incredible tech writers know exactly what they need to preserve the safety of their bodies and so are very involved in that and are often incredibly quick which I think comes from this grit and this challenge of like being upstart artists and making their own work and defining that so I don't necessarily know that it comes from like a wonderful place but I think it's truly a great asset that these artists have and as a presenter I have found in Philly as our circus arts continue to emerge in a larger way with presenters that some of the challenges that artists face in terms of the more commercial work is something that we can actually see as an asset for presenters and because most people don't really know what contemporary circus is if I was to ask an average audience person but they do know what circus is whereas I say contemporary dance they're like I don't know are you gonna roll on the floor like I can't I can't spend money seeing that but for circus they can imagine someone doing something beautiful something virtuosic something the last questions about risk and relationship and then from there I think we can often get them in the door and open their eyes and help to build broader audiences so I think it can actually be really great. Slowly. Thank you. Thank you for all your input. My name is Verity Ferdman I'm more of a contemporary performance scholar and as you guys were talking critic I guess and as you guys were talking I was thinking about and I come more from theater I was thinking about Diane Paulus I never saw it but the donkey show and I was thinking about many many years ago I saw two amazing shows at Yale rep many many years ago one was like these like devil clowns I was definitely not I mean beautiful definitely very like I think they're Canadian and definitely not for kids but it was in a theater that's my point and the other one was the invisible circus with the Charlie Chaplin sorry a chaplain yeah thank you yeah and and also thinking about when I was in France like the way they paired a really famous director with circus artists it wasn't really I mean it wasn't a ring but it was contemporary art or whatever you want to call it and I was thinking with because you were saying venues like with Park Avenue Armory or the shed I mean or or and you were saying you know why call it circus and then I hear the presenters saying stilts and I'm thinking oh my god contemporary performance like that's not to me what you know circus is there's like very limiting to call it that or beautiful it could be very dérangeant how do you say like unstable unstable yeah yeah yeah risky in that way so you know I guess my question is are there more ways that you could partner with I mean I have no I'm not in the presenter things I have no idea but like with these other with other artists or amuse you know contemporary artists or etc well one I just respond one one thing that one part of what I'm doing with tofu is doing a lot of kind of presenter education and and talking a lot with multidisciplinary presenters who are starting to include circus in their programming things like that so there's there's work to be done certainly in that but I think one thing just to reflect back on what our local what local artists are doing right now is I haven't heard you guys talking about you know these in the international touring I mean you've talked a little bit about kind of putting your foot into it but that's a different you know the the it's it's an interesting thing to look at the kind of gap between that position of like I just made this and now I'm going to try it at these fringe festivals you know versus like this universe of touring companies and work there's constantly constantly touring with you know at very large volumes and large scale and things it's a different so the word what's what maybe there's room for for presenters is to think about how like what really what Katie is doing with fringe arts is to say you know maybe the armory is working with the large very large scale very large scale very large budget projects but also what are they doing to support local artists and how are the you know where's that cross pollination being permitted and being supportive so I don't know do can I speak to that um so I keep asking permission like I'm on the panel I can see where I want um finally usually I'm the one in the back of these panels being like anyway um so uh I think that point Ruth about sort of these larger institutions kind of considering their relationship to the local ecology is a really big factor it's one that we don't necessarily um have a ton of power in influencing on and certainly on an individual level I think um of course I lost my gorgeous thought that I was going to share and I'm excited about what was it um I think speaking to give me a second I have to breathe and then I'll figure it out interdisciplinary okay this is what it was so uh I think that a big issue is is this idea of branding language of marketing language that we often get pigeonholed into language that is um with the you know sort of that is again to go back to this kind of capitalist framework intended to like make us into a product that is easily digestible in a soundbite or a few words or an image for an audience to purchase a ticket to see us because that is the economic structure within which we are trying to engage I think that when it comes to things like um language that's something that we are in a position to influence so we can kind of think about how we want to call what we do and then that's what it's called and then the second thing I'll say is that you know for folks that want to think about how this could be functioning in a more of a pipeline system not to necessarily say that it's particularly the most functional but certainly the new york city theater community has several uh examples of um of pipelines for work to develop you know a really great example for playwrights is that they might start somewhere like the ensemble studio theater and then maybe take their work to a place like the manhattan theater club and then potentially get it to Broadway because there are structures that are being in existence for you know generations built by artists who recognize the need for the structures and took responsibilities to come up with infrastructure together and then with the support of other people who wanted to be doing admin I mean I think that's another huge part is that all of us are doing 75 things every day and admin is one of those 75 things and if we weren't doing the other 74 then they wouldn't be good and so admin is most of what I spend I think a lot of us spend our days doing so it would be really cool if there was some sort of like more organized infrastructure to maybe help take some of the brunt of the admin that we share I remember there was one time where I was talking to Keith Nelson about insurance because both of us had the experience of suddenly our insurance no longer being available and Keith was battling some really intense cost hikes and so you know fortunately we happened to be at the same room at the same time chatting and we realized that this was something that we could be in conversation about but that was just like happenstance so something that I would be really excited about is finding ways to continue the conversation to bring in folks who do this to maybe have a stake in its success financially to kind of help us create these pipelines create these support structures so that the artists can do the art and teachers can do the teaching and the students can do the learning and then we can grow and it can be an ecosystem I want to ask it you guys are doing some of this pipeline stuff and I'm wondering like maybe talk about Dixon Place as a presenter how are they how is that to negotiate them making space for that for example or when you house of yes your relationships with venues helping to generate these you know sharing opportunities and performance opportunities I love Dixon Place I had to like they don't like glitter at Dixon Place so I had to find other places to do things as my work is 90% glitter 10% fisting but house of yes house of yes works in a very interesting way it has the two women who founded it K Burke and Anya Shepaznikova do have a very particular aesthetic that they definitely hold to but it can be a wonderful place it does have a lot of technical capabilities it also acts very uniquely as a venue in that it has a huge social media following which is something that is not to be underestimated that I actually can focus a little bit more on my shows because I have a venue that helps me sell tickets which is a lot and doesn't necessarily happen with other with other venues in the city like it's difficult to both do a show and and like I can't get a social media person I don't barely know how to use my computer so so in that way house of yes has been a great incubator it also because it provides nightlife jobs for people does introduce me to a lot of new performers and vice versa I bring in like I actually go out I go to Edinburgh London I and go and meet new performers in new cities and give them a stage to perform on in New York so it's sort of this creation of an international web of wonder makers that that really excites me and house of yes is still learning we're only in our third year as a legal venue and I feel like only only just now are we yeah yeah I think four maybe four are we about to hit I can't remember found the space in January of 2014 so I think that first Christmas part Christmas show was the next so yeah yeah so we're only just now learning how to how to present things and this is something that I think we're really I'm really excited to do in 2020 is to actually have longer runs of things which is something I've had to fight tooth and nail to get because it is a place with a very quick turnover like the show has to be done at 10 o'clock so that we can start the rave which is a difficult and interesting and weird constraint everybody move out we have to bring a thousand drunk people in but like you said the bar does give a lot of allowances but also a lot of constraints because it has to be something that fits into the house of yes aesthetic in order for us to program so it's this what is it called like a catch 22 of space that is financially supported by nightlife but therefore things have to fit into that aesthetic in order to be shown there every venue has some kind of aesthetic pardon it's all every kind of venue right as an aesthetic yeah some kind of whether it's nightlife or something else it's always that's a it's a constraint yeah regardless yeah so let's have three more questions maybe from the order then we slowly have to come up with one two and then you wait hey frank um so I had actually asked stephanie to comment on the dixon blade so I'm gonna ask her thank you I was just thinking about how the interconnectedness of this you know I represent a generation and you guys are representing a generation but we all we all work together and and there's lots of us in here who are from different generations of new york circus scene and it's really cool because like as I said before bindelstift doesn't have a venue we're a homeless company but we have partnered with pretty much everybody in new york to do something to make something happen and one of those things is the kind of youth pipeline that we've built so like you know the muse has a youth program streb has an incredible youth program the sarah east johnson and the lava company used to have a youth program there's there's tons of youth stuff at circus warehouse and at other spaces in new york city so like these kids are coming through programs and then bindelstift produces a big event called the american youth circus organization's regional festival so they all get together and then we produce a couple of um professional showcases each year so kids not only from new york city but from all over the east coast come together in a professional show they meet each other there's that peer mentorship thing that happens there's this cross-pollinization between coaches and practitioners that's really cool and then you know they they become enraptured with circus and they're on fire and they go back to the muse to train or they go to circus warehouse to train and then they come to dicks in place and they try out this new material and then bindelstift hires them it's like this pipeline full circle it really is and you know i don't pay a goddamn cent of rent for a rigging point in new york city because you guys do all the heavy lifting training everybody and i get to say bindelstift artist now i'm kidding like no it really no this is this is like our community though this is this is how we make work together and that's a really important thing there's one more thing that i just wanted to address and that is you know as somebody who started doing this 25 years ago with the poverty mentality with that punk rock diy ethic aesthetic i think it kind of hurts i think it kind of held us back for a long time because you know that entrepreneurial drive is important to establishing yourself but there's a point at which you have to recognize what you're not good at and you know bindelstift has been around for a long time but we're you know we i feel like it's only in the past five years that we've really begun to professionalize as an organization as a non-profit and to reach out to as gypsy said demand funding and demand the the legitimacy and a bunch of us were present in washington at the at the national endowment for the arts and and saying like this exists here like pay attention we're here smithsonian symposium on circus that's right that was a very important that was also the first time in american history maybe that all of us were in one room together vendors you know venues presenters artists company directors funders everybody talking to each other and all school and new school circus schools as well and that should be happening more than once every 250 years that's very that's great um we only have a couple more minutes so i'm gonna do what i'm gonna ask for the last three questions is that one person respond um and maybe someone who hasn't spoken recently so yeah hi hi my name is Madeline Hoke i'm here with circus talk today reporting on this whole fabulous day um but this question stems from and i think maybe philly wouldn't be the right approach for this is um i create i teach um i'm entering scholastics and i also teach at pace university aerial and it's really interesting to work through some really high caliber dancers specifically that are getting a taste of circus for the first time and then they go see circus and they suddenly have this kinesthetic embodied knowledge of it so my question is twofold i wish i could ask everyone this but maybe just something to ponder is as creators having an audience especially the recreational scene in new york and how booming that is having audiences with more embodied experience of the art form does that influence what you make and bfa's and universities and this trickling of the art form not coming from these traditional roots familial training all of that in your take on that would be cool yeah as i mean as an instructor i think it's a super interesting question um for me i think the way that what i'm hearing that question is sort of a battle that i fight with myself when i see more most specifically jugglers who make work for other jugglers uh which i think maybe we've seen a lot of and there are some like very interesting sort of like uh yeah international juggling championships like ij a like places where like people with very specific embodied knowledge go to show off for each other uh and what is that how does that relate where does that fall in terms of desiring to communicate as a human to maybe more than like another 500 humans that exist on the planet um and so like that balance feels really uh necessary i think one of the things that we end up teaching at circadian is we you know in our first class of students we have ij we have these championship jugglers who have all of these technical skills and it's about how do you actually bring in an artistic and a performance-based toolkit so that you can not only do something really impressive but you can share something you can communicate something you can tell a story you can um yeah play with rhythm and space and time and and create an experience for an audience which is something that even somebody who doesn't know that it's much harder to juggle nine balls than four balls can say wow there's something intangible and incredible about what's what's happening there um and so i think that is something you know there's tons of recreational aerial studios and there's in some places a direct pipeline from that to commercial work and i think that that experience is um it can sometimes be a little unfortunate just because then there's a real uh value placed on what can you do and is your skill set technically advanced enough for you to be able to earn five hundred dollars and there's i mean all of these other things about like a body shaming and body and like your identity and like the corporate way of like oh no it has to be beautiful oh you did that really beautifully that was really beautiful oh good that was sexy coaching that has these words inside of it and just like yeah trying to bust that open and say no that's not what this is about actually that's one way to look at it but it's a very narrow way of looking at it and for me seeing a lot of young circus artists come in and say and to have to break them of that uh assumption about themselves that that's the only way that they can be and that's the only value that matters for them i mean that's that's really my project at at circadian and i think a lot of ours so yeah i don't know if that was really an answer to your question but it's really beautifully said yeah thank you uh next question i don't know this is back to the topic before like what gypsy mentioned and about culture have you all gotten together i know she asked that but have you gotten together to be able to reach out and ask the city start city state i know you said you went to nea um and can we meet i mean i've been out of the city for a while so i'm part of the past generations um i also jumped ship so i don't know how to navigate it but can we get a collective has anyone tried i'm willing we need us we need one one respondent uh with the mic because it's being livestreamed yeah just because you brought us back to the admin question and people were talking about structures to help administratively i just wanted to to to to say the field and fractured atlas and art new york and even knifer are all institutions that um do fiscal sponsorship and we'll you know support you with their budgeting and what we need to do is get them to include circus as categories but they're really helpful administrative organizations that can umbrella a lot of um our size companies and do you want to take the sector development thing yeah so the muses actually in a really interesting period of development because we've already been swiped out of spaces and we're in the process of getting swiped out of our space again so we have a very urgent timeline within the next two years and within the development team what we realized is if we don't have ownership of a space there is no way to long term sustain in new york city it's impossible um and just an example of that kind of financial crisis of having space when we first took our space it was around twenty two dollars a square foot it's now up to eighty um and so just the jumps are catastrophic and it's crazy um so within that we are talking to a property developer and i would love to kind of help facilitate the communities and smaller companies coming together because the next phase whether it's in new york or just outside of new york is finding out how to have ownership of a building um and it is absolutely impossible i believe these days without government funding and support to do it alone and i think it would have to house many companies and have seasons of local artists um and bringing everybody together and i think that is possible and it is something that me and my team would be happy to work with many people on part of the reason our progress has been slow and painful is because our team is so stretched then and so small because we just don't have the budget to move it any faster um and the question is will we make it on time so if there are companies you know that would all want to be housed within one structure and it is possible to do something like that that's absolutely something i would be happy to help open that dialogue and bring people together on i think it's really helpful that in this particular context because this is something i've been wanting to have happen for years and years and years is ruth that you um that you are an outside perspective kind of hosting us i think that if we as a city or even as a city to city relationship were to continue these conversations it would be really helpful to have that kind of bird's eye facilitation moderation to just sort of keep us in context so as we continue to have conversations about what that would look like i think that's a really important ingredient to include and if you want to meet at the greatest center at the seagull i'm happy to find a room for first meetings where you all um can get good like let's do one very one last one because you were very old and i overlooked you okay and then i have to i mean before you ask your question i'm just going to plug really quick the 6 30 p.m panel so um at 6 30 we have a discussion with amazingly um yarn from circa shun gendini gypsy snyder from seven fingers and jennifer miller um our artists who are all in a book i said that who are all in a book called contemporary circus edited by raise your hand if you edited that book patrick patrick leroux um and the book is here so um and i'll give a little spiel about tohu just for so you know but um anyway so that's coming up at 6 30 a very very special discussion so i hope you guys can all stay um so that that interplay can keep going which would be super great um so uh last question speaking on your collective um i want to know the experience of putting together the philly circus festival um and what we think a circus festival could look like in new york city as a way to bridge all of these circus communities and maybe like shows go on all over in new york like in house of yes and in the news in the warehouse but even like theaters in manhattan all or even the spaces that you're talking about downtown um as this like i don't know like month long giant circus festival that like people and like uh even people wanting to start companies could pitch ideas for shows i think that that's a that could be a very long answer so um i think what i'm going to do is just if you don't mind maybe katie can talk with you afterwards and then um just to say that uh that uh the participation of venue i know there's a history of a venue being supportive and so the participation of a venue is probably a good idea but um in general to say that the idea of sector development cohesion and the idea of a new festival those are parts of an ecosystem that are kind of seem to be a you know what could be in the future here and um so that's a great way to end and say like let's let's look forward to the future ben could i super quickly plug i just want to say circadian is developing and trying to become an incubator and a supporter for artists so please uh if your circus artist is working in new york we're very close join our mailing list come do show something at test flights we're going to have a little bit of money to throw at artists to be developing new works is starting in november we're going to open up an application apply for that and we're hoping to become a fiscal sponsor uh by june actually as well so we're trying to provide some of these services i know we're not in new york but we're quite close so uh please yeah follow along and come show your work let's stay in dialogue so thank you to patrick and frank again for this day and thank you so much to all of our panelists and thank you for all for being here and we'll see you in about 40 thank you ruth