Lift UP

3 Weeks Contemporary Circus R&D Project (1 week Prep + 1-2 weeks R&D)

Come with us on a journey of relationships clashing, (human) bridges and buildings breaking and falling. When the characters reach an exasperated low from competitive defeat against one another, their perspective change as they literally begin rebuilding human trust within the group.

Following the success of Brains fools’ arts council funded tour throughout the South of England, we are now looking to branch out and reach other areas in the community.

Join the cast as they perform daring aerials, acrobatic feats inspired by the writings of philosopher Martin Buber.

Adrian Berry, Jacksons Lane

“Brainfools presents an inventive, often funny ensemble work comprising skilled aerial work, clowning and acrobatics„

Timeline

The project is divided in 3 key milestones. Each lasting around a week. With 15 creatives involved at different stages.

Kickoff Week

We’ll start the project by kicking off the creatives and diving in to the research: around 3rd October

@Fish Island Circus

R&D, Creation Workshop

We will start of the creation by a movement research and then heading towards the creation of the 30 minute piece.

Location TBC

Rehearsal + 3 Performances

The last week of the project is around rehearsing and doing tech for the 3 performances on 2 days.

Location TBC

Venue: 101 Outtherearts Center (TBC)

A Large Scale Creation & Production Facility

Based in a 20,000 square foot warehouse on the former Greenham Common US Airbase, 101 houses both giant and intimate rehearsal spaces, ensuite accommodation facilities, and a fabrication workshop.

Background

Let‘s dig a little deeper

Why is it important?

Most of the cast are living in London, where every day we witness that people mindlessly wander through their lifes.

We want to show relationships and little stories that you can find when you look closely and listen to your imagination.

We feel the urge to produce work that works digs a little deeper into societal issues and sparks some thought and some change.

Who are we?

Finn & Toffy are the founders of Brainfools, a grassroot circus company that tells social stories. Toffy is responsible for the Brain as Producer and Finn adds a bit of foolishness as a creative director. Together with Jared Shanks as Director we started this amazing project to inspire change.

Together with a group or acrobats, dancers, puppeteers, musicians and artists we will be creating this performance collaberatively.

Most of us graduated from the National Centre for Circus in London together. Where we made the decision we want to create circus that has a bit of meaning but keeps a light hearted essence.

So our credo is:

„Soulful Stories - Silly Circus“

We call our selves Brainfools. We are currently 10 artists working together as a collective.

Ultimately, we explore new and innovative pathways to bring the thrills, spills, and chills of live performance to the worlds’ audiences.

Target Audience

We want to engage with young people (a) living in the UK who are interested in trying new activities, meeting new people and learning performing skills.

The showing it’self is a little more mature then our previous work so we have a slightly higher rating.

Age: 8+

Environmental Responsibility

A large focus for the project is to reduce the carbon footprint to as little as possible. With e.g. using electric carsWe want to go further. We want to know the extent to which these measures reduce our CO2 emittance, if there are other things we could be doing and how to calculate and record this data so that we can scrutinise and better understand the tour’s environmental impact.

We also aim to use recycled materials.

Technical Details

The itty gritty

Show Details

Show times

Show length: first showing 30min (flexible depending on format) full show will be 75 min
Get in 4h
Get out 1.5h
Availability starting end of may 2023

Footprint

Stage & Structur

Outdoor & Indoor version
Flexible audience: e.g. ‘end-on’, ‘in-the-round’, or ‘traverse’ room configuration depending on venue (flexible)
Height: min 4.8m height and max 7m
Floor space: 5m x 6m minimum

More Details

Find our more

Lighting – we provide our own lighting rig.
Sound – we provide our own sound system.
Power – all our equipment can run on battery power. Where possible, we may take advantage of charging points.
Dressing Room – Where possible, the use of a small room, other than the performance space, to change and store belongings in is desirable.
Workshops – The company will also offer workshops for the local community (e.g. „Social Circus“, „Screenprinting“ shirts, making soap“)
Get in: We arrive in an electric van and a car so ideally we would like to charge the car