Circus Company Extraordinary Bodies to Host Free Inclusive Workshops in Cardiff

In partnership with Hijinx theatre, the pioneering integrated circus company Extraordinary Bodies, will be running free inclusive workshops in Cardiff. The workshops will explore circus and physical theatre skills, including aerial, for disabled and non-disabled members of the local community.

Extraordinary Bodies will be in Cardiff from the 8th - 10th November 2017.

The pioneering professional circus company, Extraordinary Bodies, are travelling to 10 different locations across the UK and Ireland, in search of stories of life, value and society in 2017. In November they will be in residency with Hijinx theatre in Cardiff, holding free workshops for Hijinx Academy members and local arts practitioners to play, experiment, share stories and learn circus and performance skills, including aerial. The workshops will take place at the Tabernacle Church Hall, The Hayes, Cardiff, from the 8th - 10th November, and will focus on developing content for their new show for the Hijinx Unity Festival 2019.

Extraordinary Bodies are a contemporary circus company made up equally of deaf, disabled and non-disabled performers, musicians, writers and creatives. They make work in which the diverse makeup of society is represented onstage, backstage and in the audience. They work with communities to make shows because they believe that they can have the largest impact by showing the world as it really is.

By posing the question 'What Am I Worth?' Extraordinary Bodies want to understand what people think about their value in society, and how they would like their own worth to be recognised. The stories, ideas and contributions from the Creative Explorations will be used as material for the making of an exciting new show for 2018. It will be a joyful, radical, bold, accessible performance. They will tell the stories of people developing their own worth in a culture that devalues them. The show will include live music, integrated BSL interpretation and audio description, and will play to audiences of up to 1000 people. It will be performed in the outdoors, from summer 2018, by an exceptional cast of disabled and non-disabled circus, theatre and music artists.

This project is funded by Arts Council England's Ambition for Excellence.

"Extraordinary Bodies will be a game-changer for circus in this country and we are delighted to support it. It puts the creative case for diversity front and centre of great art - exactly where it should be." - Alison Clark, National Director, Combined Arts & Programme Lead, Ambition for Excellence, Arts Council England

"We collectively make a response, united, stronger, defiant, loud & proud, with real shared & lived values based on our experiences together, we celebrate inclusively, equally and ultimately that it brings real change in our divided society that continues to build disabling barriers, discriminates and oppresses difference... It's time to knock these barriers down with louder songs, bigger performances, humour, fun, energy and genuine passion to go along a shared journey where we are all valued as human beings with all rights respected and alive!" - John Kelly, Extraordinary Bodies performer and musician

"We're delighted to be working with Extraordinary Bodies with the residency in Cardiff in November and can't wait to see what the stories and workshops develop into for our 10th anniversary of the Unity Festival in 2019." - Ben Pettitt-Wade, Hijinx

Extraordinary Bodies is an integrated* professional circus company and a partnership between Cirque Bijou and Diverse City. They first worked together during the launch of the Olympic Sailing events at Weymouth as part of London2012. They made our first show in 2013 and toured it in 2014-16, working with vast numbers of communities along the way to help us present a large scale, outdoor, high quality show that demonstrated that we really could make Circus for Every Body. In 2016-18 we are funded through Arts Council England's Ambition for Excellence programme to make permanent and positive change in the way circus is taught and produced with disabled artists, by developing a solid, skilled, sustainable and high quality national integrated circus company who innovate, advocate, challenge, support and inspire.

Extraordinary Bodies will visit 9 locations in the UK and Carlow in Ireland. They will stay in those places and run artistic residencies in collaboration with the following partners: Funky Llama Theatre Royal Plymouth; Activate Performing Arts; Dorset; City Arts, Nottingham; Carlow Arts Festival, Ireland; Glasgow Merchant City Festival; Telford & Wrekin Borough Council; Hijinx Unity Festival, Cardiff; Bristol Old Vic; Southwark Council; and The Theatre Orchard, North Somerset.

They are also working in partnership with National Centre for Circus Arts and Circomedia to change the way circus is taught, and with International Street Arts Network to change the way outdoor arts are made and presented.

Their new show, What Am I Worth? will tour in 2018-19.

Visit www.extraordinarybodies.org.uk, www.cirquebijou.co.uk or www.diversecity.org.uk for more information.

Hijinx are a professional theatre company based at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff who tour small scale theatre throughout the UK, Europe and the rest of the World.

What makes us different is that our casts always include actors who have learning disabilities. The ability of these effortlessly talented performers is at the heart of every show we produce, creating work that is utterly absorbing, surprising and provocative.

We call it inclusive theatre because it makes much of the skills and raw talent of people who often get overlooked in today's world and gives them a platform to make and perform stunning theatre alongside actors who don't have disabilities.

*'integrated' means disabled and non disabled people working equally together

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