26/05/2022
There was a lot of talk over the last 10 days of the festival about the circus community being a family, about how we help each other and support each other. I think the act we presented, in both it’s concept and content, and the journey it took for it to get on stage is the absolute epitome of the love, support, commitment, passion and strength of that circus family and community.
When you see the images from the festival, from the three of us on stage performing, to us holding our awards or praying in-front of a make-shift cardboard poster, there are a myriad of people who are right there in that photo with us. People who have helped us, supported us and finagled with us on this crazy journey and we owe all of them a huge thank you and enormous gratitude because without them we would not have been able to do this.
We want to thank:
A massive thank you to our Director Shana Carroll for not only originating the discipline but also for her ideas, concepts, stories, support and love. Also for time and time again giving us the confidence, space and opportunities to keep pushing forward and to try, and to fail, and to create in a way that only she can.
Our exceptional team of coaches, who simultaneously kept Isis safe while coming up with new ways to put her in danger.
Francisco Cruz who was there with us at 10am each morning, double double in hand, ready to go with wild ideas and enthusiasm.
Veronique Thibeault who helped us find words in an aerial language we’d never spoken.
Lucy Francis who was there right at the beginning to help us to start separating the ‘maybe, sort of, kinda possible ideas’ into the ‘oh wow, maybe that’s a good idea’ ideas.
Martha Harrison who swooped in at the very last second to be super-coach in the home straight.
Colin Gagné who made the most perfectly-fitting and beautiful piece of music for us to tell this story through.
Les 7 doigts de la main for all the support they gave us during our time in Montreal last summer. They let us be the first ones in the building and the last ones to leave, and we wouldn’t have been able to create so much and so freely without them, and the creativity that permeates that building.
National Centre for Circus Arts for their help in rigging things just for us, and then moving that rigging to another room, and then moving it back when we realised it wouldn’t work. Also to massaging the rules for us, and then to ignoring the times we broke the rules instead of massaging them.
Our main-London-Longing-Lad Arthur Parsons who came in day after day to repetitively longe the same things over and over again and never once complained.
Scarlett O'Sullivan who spent 5 hours painting us with bleach in a poorly ventilated changing room. We ended up with chemical burns, lightheadedness and beautiful costumes.
Emma Stones for always believing in us, and for making us a lucky poster.
Our legendary fly mat, longe teams and line pullers who never once questioned why we always seemed to need them to fly mat on the days I had suggested everyone comes in and trains as a group: Yann LeBlanc, Ben Ratcliffe, Klodi Dąbkiewicz, Lee Keenor, Stefan Alexander, Benjamin Courtenay, Louis Joyal, Craig Dagostino, Jack McGarr and Maxime Blanckaert.
Our Young Stage mat and longe crew, Anselmi Kaisanlahti , Orfeo Llewellyn and Minna Pulsa, thank you for not going to the pub, or to the hotel, or to have a nap and instead coming on stage and holding the mat to keep us safe.
On the subject of the fly mat, we owe Jenifer Mary Vinell a big thank you, as despite trying to recover from the flu spent a week stitching and sewing a stage appropriate cover around it.
International Circus Festival YOUNG STAGE Basel and Nadja Hauser for having us, it would have been very difficult to perform it there without them!
We racked our brains to make sure we remembered everyone who’s helped us across the last 9 months since we started this, we hope we did. And if we didn’t, tell us and we will right it.
Thank you to everyone who has invested a part of their self, time, experience or energy into this number. It could not have been done without you.
