ACAPTA (Australia)
The Australian Circus & Physical Theatre Association (ACAPTA) is an advocacy body and membership organisation supporting the development of circus and physical theatre. They organise workshops, masterclasses, labs and seminars, and their website has event listings, news and a member's directory of artists working in the sector.
www.acapta.org.au
CASCAS
CASCAS (Circus And Street Arts Come And See) was a European project to promote intercultural understanding and exchange. Between May 2010 and November 2011 it arranged four tours for four small groups of circus and street arts professionals in the project's partner countries (UK, Sweden, Finland and Belgium) as a way of introducing them to that country's conditions and working practices. As part of the project, four briefing documents were produced — short guides to the circus and street arts sectors in the partner countries that give a basic overview of government policy, key festivals and venues, example companies, etcetera. All four guides can be downloaded as PDFs from the CASCAS website in English; some other languages are available on request. A short book, Postcards From Street Arts and Circus, was also written by the researcher Yohann Floch, who followed all of the CASCAS tours.
www.cascas.org
Circostrada Network (France)
Coordinated by HorsLesMurs, Circostrada is a network and platform that works to improve the infrastructure and institutional recognition of circus and street arts in Europe. Its major activities are coordinated in response to thrice-annual meetings at which the Network's approximately 60 members formulate strategies for developing circus and street arts, but two major strands of Circostrada's work have been the organisation of seminars and the publication of guides, studies and dossiers. The Network's publications are all available to download for free as PDFs, some of them in multiple languages, and range from translations of major Stradda Magazine features (dossiers), to pieces of academic and artistic research (studies), to charters, bibliographies and manuals for good practice (guides). Note that only the recent guides / studies are listed in the Publications section, and that the older items, and all of the dossiers, are here.
www.circostrada.org
Circuscentrum (Belgium)
Formed in 2007 as the successor to Circusvlo, a not-for-profit that supported youth and recreational circus, Circuscentrum is the main advocacy body for circus in Flanders and supports the development of the artform at all levels. The organisation's website collects information on the heritage of circus in Belgium, performance and festival listings, and PDFs of selected articles from their quarterly publication CircusMagazine. Circuscentrum has its own documentation centre at its space in Gent, and in collaboration with the outdoor arts festival MiramirO maintains a database of joint holdings. The articles, books, papers, etcetera aren't viewable online, though, so it acts as a bibliography and a place to pick up meta-data on format, publication date, author information, etcetera.
www.circuscentrum.be
FEDEC (France)
Founded in 1998, La Fédération européenne des écoles de cirque professionnelles (FEDEC) is a network of 42 professional circus schools and 13 circus arts organisations located in 26 different countries. It acts principally as an advocate and professional body to improve the standards of circus training and to promote international exchange and the work of young artists. Two of FEDEC's largest activites are the coordination of Circle, a week of pedagogical and artistic exchange between circus schools that takes place every year under the auspices of Auch's Festival Circa, and the publication of various reports, studies and guides (with the largest series being a Basic Circus Arts Instruction Manual, divided into chapters that cover trapeze, tightwire, Chinese pole, Cyr wheel, and other disciplines). The publications are available for free, in French and English and sometimes German, in the Resources section of the FEDEC website.
www.fedec.eu
Finnish Circus Information Centre (Finland)
Based at CIRKO Center in Helsinki, the Finnish Circus Information Centre maintains a library of circus books, magazines and DVDs; lobbies government to win greater recognition for contemporary circus; and conducts and publishes research. Its website contains a database (divided into Performances, Artists and Teachers, and Circus Companies), a gig guide, and a small amount of general information on the history of circus in Finland along with a PDF introduction to the contemporary scene (Experience Finnish Circus!). The Centre also publishes the statistics collected by the Finnish Theatre Information Centre on the organisations that receive subsidy.
www.sirkusinfo.fi
HorsLesMurs (France)
Established in 1993 as a national resource centre for circus and street arts, HorsLesMurs' activities are focused on research, documentation and advocacy. The organisation runs a physical library out of its offices in Paris' Folie-Méricourt quarter; maintains, along with a number of partner organisations, an online médiathèque of archived photos, videos and articles, and an immense database of contacts in the circus and street arts sectors; creates tools and organises seminars to help artists/companies with administrative, legal and tax issues; and publishes the quarterly magazine Stradda (which took over from the biannual Arts de la Piste in 2006). HorsLesMurs also coordinates Circostrada Network.
www.horslesmurs.fr