1. Re-establishing Circus with a Brand New Professional Circus Training Facility The earthquakes ruined everything: my city, my profession, my life — but I am the proverbial Phoenix, and I am not alone, as there are thousands now rising from the rubble. The violence of the earthquakes in 2010 & 2011 shut down the only professional circus-training programme and community hub in Aotearoa/New Zealand — Circo Arts, leaving a well established circus community homeless. Still, circus people are the epitome of resilience and our story is but an echo of the transformative power that the circus arts can have on people’s lives around the world. After the earthquakes decimated the city and surrounding regions, a few part-time shared circus spaces popped up, but were inevitably shut-down too, as all the city’s buildings went through engineering risk assessments and were deemed unfit for use. Withou...