I was the director for the creation of The Sexual Health Circus; a new ‘circus in education’ show created to enhance young people’s experience of sexual health education through the engaging media of circus!

The performance was an interactive circus show with clear messages and morals about sexual health that highlighted key RSE curriculum topics including consent, gender identity, self-pleasure, pornography, contraception, healthy and unhealthy relationships, nudes and pleasure. The use of interactive and visually engaging ‘circus in education’ encourage curiosity as well as critical thinking.
In March 2019, a team of talented circus artists created the first “Sexual Health Circus” show in Bristol. As a new form, we firstly explored the potential of circus skills to explore sexual health themes and relationship dynamics. Contemporary circus as an art form that is perfectly suited to using skills to create a spectacle, atmosphere and build credibility with the audience. Circus is also able to represent situations such as communication and consent through the safe enactment of partner acrobalance. Circus is also good at metaphor; a hat routine with multiple hats representing different types genders.
 
I led the devising process aiming to incorporate the skills and the ideas of the artists Jess Herman, Jacob Hirsch-Holland, Emily Ball and Winston Pyke. The creative process was also guided by Theatre-in-Education consultant, Jackie Clementines and Circus Theatre Consultant, Gwen Hales. The content was steered through youth consultations with young people from the Creative Youth Network and Off the Record. The project producer, Jess Herman is a sexual health educator ensured the sexual health content met the needs of the national secondary school’s Relationship and Sex Education curriculum. The project was further supported in this capacity by specialist Sexual Health providers Brook. A one-hour performance followed by an anonymous question session was tested in three secondary schools across Bristol in this pilot phase of the project. There was also one sell-out public performance at the Ashton Court Arts Mansion on Saturday 30 March.
ABOUT ROBYN
Robyn is a Bristol-based director, teacher and performer. With over 20 years experience she is a passionate practitioner of clowning, physical theatre, circus and street arts. She has a MA in Circus Directing, a Diploma of Physical Theatre Practice and trained with a long line of inspiring teachers including Holly Stoppit, Peta Lily, Giovanni Fusetti, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma and Deanna Fleysha.
Robyn has collaborated with companies including Let’s Circus, The Sexual Health Circus and Whispering Wood Folk and performed with acclaimed physical theatre companies including, Derevo, Akhe, Oceanallover, and Gappad as well as her own award-winning company, Fun in the Oven Theatre.
During the pandemic in 2020, Robyn set up The Online Clown Academy with Holly Stoppit and developed a series of Zoom Clown Courses. Robyn’s research, started during her Masters, has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and activism, online, in the real world and with international collaborators. With this drive to explore political edges of her work she has also dived back into the world of the Bouffon; training with Jaime Mears, Bim Mason, Nathaniel Justiniano, Eric Davis, Tim Licata, Al Seed and the grand master Bouffon-himself; Philippe Gaulier. She has also set up the Laboratory of the Un-beautiful; a collaboration with Deborah Antoinette Bard, exploring the bouffon & grotesque with womxn theatre makers.