Make Space Circus releases a documentary that portrays a creative accessible circus collaboration with Tamba Africa Social Circus (BSL)

Where Do I Sit? is a short documentary about the creative collaboration between Make Space Circus and Tamba Africa Social Circus.

The documentary has been two years in the making, during which time Make Space Circus researched the disability landscapes in both Zimbabwe and the UK and ran skill exchanges between the two  companies.

Workshops were held with local disabled and able-bodied communities including those with Deaf Zimbabwe Trust, The Girls Network & L’Arche Zimbabwe. The aim of the workshops was to understand the current barriers in place.

Amy Nicholls reflected on the cultural differences she noticed from the workshops, commenting that;

“During the workshops, we noticed the difference between the participants in the UK and Zimbabwe who were all aged between 15-18 years old.

Our Zimbabwe participants had so much self-confidence and self-worth and even called themselves beautiful when they audio described themselves. Whereas the UK participants felt uncomfortable describing themselves.

This was an interesting reflection on the cultural differences. The result of this was that the Zimbabwe teenagers seemed more empowered to make a change, and we wondered how a show like ours could empower the UK participants, or people like them, to feel the same way.”

The documentary itself shows glimpses of the rehearsals and workshops, with a detailed and artistic flair to the audio description throughout the film too.

We meet deaf Zimbabwean dancer Dione Manjoro who accesses the rehearsals via a sign language interpreter and tells us about her love for dance. She states how she hopes that through her work, ‘other disabled people will be able to see that disability does not mean inability.’

At the end of the research, development and rehearsals, the team created an accessible female and disabled-led show that aimed to ‘change the perceptions of the possibilities for disabled people and women.’

Titled, ‘Where do I Sit?’ the show took place at the Shambala Festival inside Lavrak Circus’ round circus tent. The performance consisted of four female performers, who led a colourful, vibrant and exciting range of performances which all took place inside the Big Top.

With aerial acrobatics, signed song, and poetry, deaf performer and sign singer Caroline Parker was brought in to signs songs, and also managed to whip up a mass sign-along with resulted in the whole in-the-round audience signing along to ‘Feeling Good’ by Nina Simone.

Jenny Sealey, deaf performer, director and Artistic Director of Graeae Theatre was also involved in the development stage by creating gestural sign language for the show in order to ensure it was accessible to deaf audience members internationally. The show was also accessible throughout with creative audio description.

Both creative directors commented in the documentary on how much they had learnt throughout the whole process. Amy Nicholls stated that key takeaways for her included:

‘How much we have to learn from other culture’s approaches to access and also how much we have to gain from collaborating internationally.’

Karina Jones also added,

“It is so important for those making audio description and providing British Sign Language for shows to actually understand what they’re doing, so they can produce something fit for the purpose.”

Amy described further how audio description for circus is very limited in the UK, and is not currently offered at all in Zimbabwe.

Those at Make Space Circus are now looking to continue their research into the different disability landscapes in other cultures and explore what we can be learnt from each other in order to create a bigger impact together.

Where Do I Sit? Is an Unlimited International Partner Award 2023 commission made possible due to funding from British Council and Arts Council England.

Make Space Circus is a disabled and female-led organisation run by Karina Jones and Amy Nicholls, founded to debunk stereotypes of disabled people and women and make kick ass circus! You can watch the documentary Where Do I Sit? here.