Mission
Sideshow's first commitment is to iteration: in design and in mission.
Since launching in May 2009 the website has been rebuilt approximately twice a year, each time reframing its activities and redrawing its editorial lines. As of November 2012 Sideshow is on version 6, for which the main focuses are:
1. Artistic Process
In any live performance form the process is likely to outweigh the product in time spent and complexity – and in contemporary circus, where shows take longer to develop and have shorter lifespans, this is especially true. With the ambition of doing more than illuminating only the end-point of the artistic process – the show itself – Sideshow will no longer publish reviews and will commit this time instead to producing in-depth writing that develops alongside the work of a particular company or production.
2. Collaboration
In order to expand the reach of the website's activities and sustain them in the long term, Sideshow will concentrate on conceptualising projects that can be undertaken in partnership with venues, festivals and organisations. These collaborations are expected to encompass and support the majority of Sideshow's long-form and research-based writing.
3. Breadth / Interconnection
Sideshow is committed to covering contemporary circus internationally and to drawing connections between national aesthetics. The Correspondence section of the magazine will therefore concentrate on breadth, offering a zoomed-out view of the artform's activities around the world.
Objectives
The above focuses emerge from a set of six core objectives:
1. Connect circus artists across Europe (and beyond) by stimulating the flow of information between national sectors.
2. Advocate for the artform and improve its recognition among funding bodies and the general public.
3. Develop a voice and a language that is knowledgeable, measured and contextually aware, yet free from jargon and accessible to those approaching circus for the first time.
4. Disseminate, in particular, information on UK artists and companies to raise the profile of UK circus among overseas venues and programmers.
5. Distribute circus literature produced by third parties (books, DVDs, and magazines).
6. Experiment with the format and delivery of written material to test emerging revenue models that exist outside of conventional advertising, and publicly share the results.