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.
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.
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, Bim Mason, Jon Davison, Zuma Puma, Lucy Hopkins and John Wright.
Over the past five years she has been exploring the meeting point of clowning and a deep desire to address the injustices in the world. This specialism has developed through her Masters Research ‘Small Circus Acts of Resistance’, on the streets and in protests with the Bristol Rebel Clowns and in research residencies with The Trickster Laboratory. Robyn’s Activist Clown research has led to collaborations with Jay Jordan (Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, France), Clown Me In (Beirut), LM Bogad (US), Hilary Ramsden (Greece) and international Tricksters; ‘The Yes Men’ (US). 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. Keen to explore the intersection of clowning and politics, Robyn is driven to create collaborative, research spaces, testing and pushing the limits of the artform to create new knowledge and methodologies for her industry and strengthen partnerships for future work. Some of her most recent collaborations and teaching projects have included the Nomadic Rebel Clown Academy (5-day Activist Clown Training), The Laboratory of the Un-beautiful (Feminist Grotesque Bouffon Training for Womxn Theatre Makers) and the Clown Congress (annual gathering of clowns, activists & academics collectively exploring what it means to be a clown in this current era) |
Photo by HeardinLondon Photography
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