Make Space Circus - Where do I sit?

Make Space Circus is a disabled and female-led organisation run by Karina Jones and Amy Nicholls. Karina is an actor, aerialist, vocal coach and audio description consultant. She’s performed with prestigious theatre companies including the RSC, Leeds Playhouse and Ramps on the Moon. Karina first trained as an aerialist in order to perform at the 2012 London Paralympic Games. Amy is a self-producing Circus Artist, and Fundraiser working with The Revel Puck Circus and Levantes Dance Theatre. She’s the Co-Director of Lavrak Circus, and a Board Member for Handstand Arts, who run Circus City. Amy first trained as an aerialist on the walls of buildings in Cornwall. 

Where Do I Sit? is a short documentary about a Make Space Circus & Tamba Africa Social Circus collaboration. Over 2 years we researched the disability landscapes in Zimbabwe & the UK, and ran skill exchanges between the 2 companies. 
We ran workshops with local disabled and able-bodied communities with Deaf Zimbabwe Trust, The Girls Network & L'Arche Zimbabwe to understand barriers in place. 
At the end of it all, we made a kickass, accessible female and disabled-led show that aims to change the perceptions of the possibilities for disabled people and women. 

During the workshops, we noticed the difference between the participants in the UK & Zimbabwe, who were all aged 15-18. Our Zimbabwe participants had so much self-confidence and self-worth and 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 show is called ‘Where do I Sit?’ and is a 4 woman vibrant cabaret-style celebration of strong disabled and able-bodied women. We used aerial acrobatics, signed song, powerful poetry, and a bit of audience participation to illustrate the lack of ‘seats’ allocated for women and disabled people in our society, and encourage our audiences to work together to create a welcoming space for everyone. The show was accessible through creative audio description, and gestural sign language.

There was a huge amount of learning from each others’ cultures; an example of a really exciting tool we developed together is our new way of audio describing circus. We utalised the creative skills in the team to develop audio description techniques that were just as exciting to listen to as the circus was to watch. Two performers worked together on stage- the audio describer at times became the hype woman. We played with that dynamic in relation to showing audiences our inherent way of supporting each other’s access needs and lifting each other up. Audio description for circus is very limited in the UK, and not being done in Zimbabwe. Nickie Wildin called the audio description in our show ‘groundbreaking’.

We performed the show at Shambala festival, in Lavrak Circus’s 500 seater Windy Van Hooten in the round circus tent. We are looking to continue our research into the different disability landscapes in other cultures and what we can learn from each other to achieve a bigger impact together. 

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

Watch our short documentary HERE!