This newsletter's painterly cover star is Sashiko Yoshimura's illustration of the German handbalancer Julia Christ. Along with a dozen or so other artists, Julia will be showing/performing at Currency, a dance, circus and physical theatre event at The Place which is solidly this month's recommendation. If you'd like to read some more about it, then there's some more here.
Something else I'd like to highlight is this month I pulled together some stats about Arts Council England funding for circus organisations/projects in 2012-13. I hope that a few people will find it useful in supporting/arguing constructive points about the development of the sector. I also hope some people with exceptional taste will admire the pink-lilac colour spectrum exhibited in map number 2.
Updating on October activity within the Deconstructing Circus project, Skye Gellmann / Naomi Francis give their thoughts on Mothlight. One thing that doesn't get hit on in the interview, and which I guess I'm feeling a little more aware of thanks to this project, is that the scene is excellently filmed – it captures the rhythm and movement of the actual viewing experience, I think, and protects the piece's surprises. Anyway, it's worth watching.
And then I was planning to publish Aurélien Bory on Sans Objet today, but decided I wanted to follow-up on a few questions and work on it a little more. It's one of my favourite shows, so I'd like to treat it right. After that I think the next one from me will be either Sverre Waage / Karoline Aamås on Bastard or Marie-Andrée Robitaille on one strand of the extensive Gynoïdes Project – but we're also almost there on a couple of the commissions from other writers, so let's see.
I'm pretty far behind on schedule, overall, so I asked the Arts Council if I could extend the project a little. If they say yes, then it'll run to spring of next year; if no, then so be it – I will power through.
On the subject of interviews and the sheer number of them I currently have to conduct and transcribe, I'll also be doing half a dozen or so for the London International Mime Festival. Mostly circus companies, but some others. Probably the first of those will be Aurélien Bory again, talking about the flamenco solo he directed, Questcequetudeviens?.
And then I think at some point, probably quite a long time from now, I'll complete a Bory trilogy by writing something about Azimut, which I saw the other week at Festival CIRCa. A lot of people say that his theatre is drawing closer to visual art as it subordinates human action to composition, imagery, design, space, but it's also becoming like visual art in the way that the work is more just an entranceway into a field – let's call it a thought field – that you wander around in on your own, after hours. The images in the show, which are very beautiful, fix in your mind as reference points when you begin your personal navigation. I came out with notes to read more about: the significance of wool in Sufism, different interpretations of the idea of 'closeness to God', mountain ranges in Morocco, dervishes, geometric patterns in Islamic art, and the patron saint of acrobats. Eventually I'll let you know what I find.