Carny Ville!

After teaching workshops in Bristol weekend, hosted by the lovely Victoria Bone we managed to get to the Carny Ville, it was the closing night of the show and I am so glad I caught it. I was verily impressed by the sheer amount of work and attention to detail everywhere you looked. I cannot wait to see what they come up with next at their new location in Bristol.

The weird and murky world of the carnival reincarnates with all the fun of the unfair. Become the fool you have always been in this anarchic pantomime of radical games, in an immersive high flying contemporary circus spectacular!

The Artspace Lifespace Project is an artist led initiative that recycles vacant, under used and often semi derelict urban and rural sites into thriving active creative arts resources. It is a voluntary organisation that relies on the energy and enthusiasm of its members and extended network of Artists to recycle urban decay into creative space.

The Invisible Circus is a collective of multi-skilled artists formed during a decade and a half of world travel and adventure as street performers. The companies Renegade Fabulon Circus Stage became a festival favorite after it’s debut in the first Lost Vagueness field at Glastonbury 2002. With an emphasis on social comment and ethos of accessibility the company have provided a platform for new circus and theatre.
The Invisible Circus has appeared in over 20 countries around the world since forming in 1992. Specializing in site specific performance and made to order spectacles we have performed at some of the wildest parties and biggest festivals in the world! Glastonbury Big Top, Burning Man USA, Womad New Zealand and so many more. Born in the carnivals of Europe and toured across the streets and stages of the world, The Invisible Circus will blow your mind.

Check out their relief work, clowning in countries hit by disaster and war: Disaster Area Response Clowns

“Sometimes it has to get really dark before we see the the brightest stars.”

The Invisible Circus believe in the power of the individual. the power of the fool and the power of the clown!

This Year we travelled to Zagorah, near Marrakesh in Maroc where we ran workshops                                                                        in a local school and performed for children in the surrounding area.We visited refugees from New Orleans in Austin Texas after hurricane Katrina devastated the south during our week of shows at The Burning Man festival in Nevada. We did workshops with the kids and fundraising shows to aid the volunteer clean up operation. The Renegade Fabulon show has been a fundraising event for various causes around the world which have included Circus2Iraq, Rwanden refugees and the good people of Thailand after the tsunami hit back in 2005.

 

Never Mind the Balkans…

Its the name of an album I am listening to by Max Pashm right now, but also it made me think about the music we are dancing to in the Tribal Fusion scene, some trends that come and go, some trends that have stuck amidst the flux that is our constantly evolving dance form.

It got me to wondering why I choose Balkan tracks as much as I do for performing. Apart from the obvious, the infectious rhythms and passion bursting from the songs, which I was fortunate to be able to experience in Eastern Europe first hand this Summer. Why not choose traditional music from where I am from? I was in conversation with Amel Tafsout recently and she wondered the same thing, “everyone is dancing to Balkan music, why not use music traditional to YOUR roots?’

Being born to a Belgian Mother and British Father (London boy born and bred) I have no roots in the Balkans, but the music moves me to the core and makes me want to dance my sockdreams socks off…

So, my mission for the foreseeable is to research songs and music traditional to where I live. There is a plethora of olde songs local to where I live right now (Devon) and I am starting the research into activist songs, drinking tunes, and traditional melodies being forgotten… people dont seem to sing in the pubs round here anymore  It’s exciting…I have no idea what will come up.

 

The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found.

From Wikipedia

Terry Herbert of Burntwood in Staffordshire, a 55-year-old who had been practising amateur metal detection for eighteen years, uncovered a few scraps of gold on a farm owned by Fred Johnson near Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, in July 2009.^[1][2] The hoard was reported to Duncan Slarke, the local officer of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and on 24 September 2009 was declared treasure by the South Staffordshire coroner Andrew Haigh, meaning it belongs to The Crown.^[3] The hoard is believed to be worth in excess of £1 million, which will be paid as a reward to the landowner and Herbert.^[4]

Following the discovery, an archaeological excavation was undertaken by Staffordshire County Council with the assistance of Birmingham Archaeology, an archaeological contractual unit associated with the University of Birmingham. Because of the importance of the find, the site of the hoard has been kept secret, though no traces of any graves, buildings, or other structures have been found.^[4] The discovery was announced publicly on 24 September 2009, after completion of the coroner’s inquest, with the site being reported only as “near Burntwood”.^[5] The site is said to be on cultivated land which had recently been plowed, with individual items scattered over an area of about 20 square meters, and with some items originally visible on the surface without digging.^[6]