Circus Futures 2006 was a unique two day event for people who wanted to play a role in the development of contemporary circus in the UK. The event consisted of a conference and a series of showcases taking place side by side in Bristol, and the audience included promoters from venues and festivals, practitioners, local authority art officers, agents and circus proprietors.

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Jeunes Talents Cirque Europe is a support programme for emerging contemporary circus artists in Europe, aimed at assisting artistic research for the creation of new performance. We encourage projects that mix circus with other art forms, for example drama, spoken word, digital media, theatre, music and puppetry. Click here for full details and application forms.

Circus Futures is about providing connection routes between policy makers, programmers and artists by stimulating the conversations taking place and providing extracts of performances that show the breadth of contemporary circus in the UK . It has been informed by discussions with key individuals working in and around the industry

The conference debated issues surrounding the creation and distribution of contemporary circus work in this country and beyond. Featuring key note speakers and panel discussions, there was also an opportunity for delegates to be directly involved in the debate.

The showcases featured leading contemporary circus artists, of a variety of scales. Performers taking part had been selected by a panel of experts who in turn created individual shows, allowing the artists to offer extracts of shows available for programming. This was backed up by Circus Futures brochure with details of all the companies taking part. Download a PDF file of the brochure by clicking here. To see photographs of the conference please click here and to see photographs of the showcases please click here. Thanks to all of you who attended.

Thanks to Expressive Feat for the use of their image, photo by Merlin Hendy. A huge vote of thanks to Desmond Fitzgerald for his conference and showcase photographs.