Following over two years of delays, circus educators from across Europe spent five days together in Lappeenranta, Finland, for the 13th meeting of the Network of International Circus Exchange. CircusWorks CEO and European Youth Circus OrganizationPresident Lynn Carroll shares how the event went down—and some of the big ideas it had to offer.

It was a long wait… our original plans for the 13th Network of International Circus Exchange (NICE) meeting in Finland were for an event in October 2020. After it was scuppered by Covid and postponed 3 times, we finally got to meet in June 2022!

It was the hottest week of the year. 50 circus teachers and trainers from 13 different European countries gathered for five days on the shores of Lake Saimaa, in Southeast Finland. We were warmly welcomed by our hosts from the performing arts school Taidekoulu Estradi.

NICE exists to bring together circus trainers from across Europe to receive training and to offer a forum for exchanging ideas, building relationships, and inspiring each other. The theme for this year’s event was Multi-literacy in Circus Education.

 We arrived on Monday, the 27th of June, escorted by coach to a camp on the small island of Asinsaari, 30 minutes north of Lappeenranta. We stayed in log cabins and bathed in hot saunas, cooling off in the crystal-clear lake (and dodging mosquitos!). The setting was idyllic, and a great place to relax and make new friends.

To say the NICE meeting is an important event in the European Youth Circus Organisation (EYCO)’s calendar would be an understatement; NICE was the birthplace of EYCO. In 2005, the first NICE meeting was held in Berlin. Attended by youth circus practitioners from across Europe, it was a place to exchange information, share practices, and forge future partnerships. It was followed in subsequent years by events in Paris and Tampere. By the time Amsterdam hosted the event in 2009, it had gained in popularity, and discussions were underway to form a collective that would work together to not only support future events, but do pan-European partnership projects. The following year at the NICE event in London, EYCO was born.

 The 2022 seminar officially began on Tuesday the 28th. There was a short opening ceremony, where we were welcomed by the hosting organisation and the Finnish Youth Circus Association. We were then entertained by two impressive local acts—Lyra and contortion—before we all attempted Finnish folk dancing!

Then the workshops began. Mikko Rinnevuori took a look at the development of theories around skills training. Exploring the history of gymnastics training practised by his own coaches when a child, Mikko examined what has been learned about coaching in recent years, from learning as an active process through self-determination theory and the special characteristics of circus skills learning. Petra Pavarine led a thought-provoking, interactive session on Artistic Learning. This encouraged everyone to challenge their conception of what art is and take inspiration from the world around them.

 Wednesday was an action-packed day with four different workshops. Puppeteer Elina Sarno took a popular workshop on the role puppetry can play in circus education. Taruelma Heikkinen looked at combining theatre and circus. People loved the use of stories and fairytales to spark imagination in kids. Reija Tapaninen led an inspiring improvisation workshop; one participant remarked that Reija had a great way of making everyone feel comfortable, and it was easy to ‘let go.’ Henri Vahavanen led a fun session on rhythm and drumming, encompassing djembe and body percussion, which continued later on the coach back to the camp! But before heading back for our nightly sauna, we had some free time in Lappeenranta to explore the harbour and fortress. We then had an exclusive tour of the lakes and islands aboard the good ship Margarita. The two-hour trip was a magical way to explore the local area: the calm waters, forests, summer houses, and local cliff divers, accompanied by delicious homemade cakes and coffee.

NICE meetings are organised by the hosting organisation, which does the fundraising, decides the programme content, and coordinates all of the logistics. Each EYCO partner organisation is allocated up to four places for their country, and they go through their own selection process to decide who will attend and represent them. The host organisation may request specific demographics, but usually there is a mixture of young trainers and some experienced trainers who have attended in the past. There is always a delegation from the EYCO board there to network with participants and present EYCO projects. This year our representatives were President Lynn Carroll (UK), Secretary Wolfgang Pruisken (Germany), and Youth Forum representative Adam Banach (Poland).

 Thursday was our last full day of learning together. A substantial portion of the day was given over to EYCO’s new ‘Ideas of Inclusion’ training. For the past 18 months, EYCO partners have worked together to create this course, a half-day training for youth circus trainers focusing on attitudinal change, aiming to make circus spaces more inclusive. This event was one of seven pan-European ‘multiplier events’ piloting the course, in this instance led by Hanne Kauppinen from Finland, and Illaria Cieri from Spain. (The course is available to youth circuses across Europe; more details about it are to follow soon on the EYCO website.)

Oona Möller led a well-received hula hoop workshop, and Tinna Nuppola-Poikonen led a dance workshop. The physical qualities of these workshops were much appreciated! Participants commented on the high quality of the teaching; they liked how Oona begins her hula workshops with drills, and were all keen to introduce more dance and choreography to their circus sessions.

In the afternoon, we, as EYCO board members, led an information session on EYCO to explore future initiatives and ways that EYCO can support the youth circus sector locally, nationally, and internationally.

Then we headed back to our island for a final night of saunas, swimming, and a cultural food exchange—we all brought a taste of our home countries, and shared food and drink late into the nightless night of Finnish summer, before heading to our homes across Europe with full hearts and tired bodies!

Many thanks to Petra Mäki-Neuvonen from Art School Estradi, who initiated the project, wrote the funding application, and was responsible for planning and programming the content of the seminar alongside the Finnish Youth Circus Association (FYCA) and Art School Estradi. Thanks again to Petra and the team at Taidekoulu Estradi for raising the funds and being such fantastic hosts. And thanks to the Erasmus+ programme for supporting us!

For more info on EYCO and the Ideas of Inclusion training course, visit www.eyco.org.

Written by Lynn Carrol with input from Petra Mäki-Neuvonen, foundomg member of Taidekoulu Estradi, Lappeenranta, Finland. All images shared by Lynn Carroll.

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Lynn Carroll

Director of CircusWorks and President of EYCO – the European Youth Circus Organisation -UNITED KINGDOM

Lynn Carroll is an internationally renowned expert in circus and education. Throughout her career she has performed globally as a multi-disciplined circus artist with some of the most pioneering and acclaimed contemporary circus companies of the time, as well as being at the forefront of developing the UK youth circus sector for nearly 40 years.

In 1982, Lynn was working with the Manchester Playbus, which brought opportunities to play to children in deprived communities in the Manchester area. She was 21 years old, and felt ‘a bit purposeless’. By chance, she ended up on Reg Bolton’s Suitcase Circus course – a six day intensive in basic circus skills – which completely changed the course of her life. Over the next few years, Lynn set up Manchester Community Circus, ran play schemes in the holidays on traveller sites for Save the Children, and performed at The Haçienda, Manchester. She went on to study at the newly opened Fool Time in Bristol – Britain’s first permanent full-time school for professional circus training, which would later evolve into Circomedia.

By the late 1980s, Lynn was performing her way across Europe and Australia as a solo performer, occasionally accompanied by Balls Up Jugglers (which would later become NoFit State Circus), Johnny Torres (who went on to be Artistic director at La Central del Cirq in Barcelona), Bet Garrell Beringer (founder of Los Galindos circus company), and Ian McKellar. Lynn went on to tour prolifically throughout the 1990s and 2000s, performing with Circus Hazzard in Spain, Skinning the Cat in Germany and completing four international tours and five site specific shows with NoFit State Circus. She also founded her own aerial, fire and theatre outdoor performance company, Chimaera, which toured internationally in the 1990s, and performed extensively as a solo artist, including at the Millennium Dome.

Throughout her performing career, Lynn continued to organise and teach youth and community circus, as well as tutoring professional artists. In 2000, she became Head of Youth Circus at Circus Space (now the National Centre of Circus Arts). In this role she transformed the youth circus, from a small class of 25 participants, to a huge programme that taught more than 200 young people weekly. Around the same time, Lynn also set up and ran Woodberry Down Youth Circus and Shoreditch Youth Circus. Lynn would go on to become the head of NoFit State’s Community and Education programme. In this role, she ran their youth circus, adult classes, outreach workshops, trainee programme, and professional agency. While with NoFit State, in 2011, Lynn became a founder member of The UK Youth Circus Network (which would later become CircusWorks). In 2012 she became a board member of EYCO (the European Youth Circus Organisation), and has since worked with them to create 10 major projects, bringing circus practitioners together from 13 countries to share experience, network, and develop training resources. Finally, in 2014, Lynn became the director of CircusWorks – the UK Youth Circus Network.

For 40 years, Lynn has witnessed first hand the effect that learning circus can have on a young person’s life. As a non-competitive, teamwork orientated form of exercise, circus is uniquely accessible. Young people who engage with circus not only improve their physical abilities and learn new skills – they gain an art-form, a mode of self-expression, and often (since so much of circus is rooted in teamwork and trust), a community. They discover a world in which they can be whoever they want to be – whether they want to clown around, or fly. As director of CircusWorks, Lynn works tirelessly to expand and improve the UK youth circus sector, so that every child will one day have the chance to learn circus.