Artist Residency Access Programme

Flying Fantastic are constantly looking to make circus and aerial accessible and available to as wide an audience as possible.  We aim to create a space that is welcoming to all. The Flying Fantastic Creative Residency Programme has been developed to give circus/ dance/ theatre companies & artists the opportunity to develop new accessible work and take advantage of partnerships with some of the industry's leading professionals in their field.
 
We are offering 1 week of studio space to develop new work and conduct research and development, alongside mentoring and support. At the end of the week, there will be a safe showing to a small audience of deaf and disabled adults from Southwark Disablement Association or children from local SEND school, Cherry Garden School. Each group can choose which audience is most appropriate for you to test ideas and gain feedback. We want to create a space where you can explore, devise, and push the boundaries of your practice, while learning to make your work accessible to deaf and disabled children or adults. 
 
Our creative residencies are run in collaboration with our partner companies, Extraordinary Bodies, Cherry Garden School, Southwark Disablement Association and made possible through funding from The Arts Council Lottery Fund. 

'This residency hugely helped us understand what we were making, who it was for, and how to make it.' - Alex, Seesaw

'The opportunity to have the freedom to explore and create is so rare, and the facilities FF offered is unheard of! The mentoring was above and beyond, I really didn't expect to learn so much, it was not only helpful to our project but eye opening and educational.' - Laura, The Dot Collective 

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Image: A photo of an aerial studio with a dark blue floor and rainbow strip lights across a slanted ceiling. Along the length of the room, there are bands of truss with ropes and aerial trapezes and silks hanging from them. The truss goes up the walls and is dipped in orange and blue paint. The walls have a strip of zig zag 2 tone wooden paneling. Along the right wall, there are hanging pilates mats, aerial hoops, slings and trapezes. 

Residency Programme Overview

We expect all successful companies to provide a Risk Assessment, Public Liability Insurance and a Code of Conduct. Companies using aerial in their work will be responsible for their own rigging. 

We are very excited to offer 4 residencies to companies creating work for children with complex needs; including, but not limited to Autism Spectrum Disorder, those with profound and multiple disabilities, and those who are deafblind and multi-sensory impaired OR deaf and disabled adults. 
We would like our audiences to see that circus/ dance/ theatre is a place for them. We are particularly interested in hearing from companies working with disabled artists. 
 

Dates available
21st-25th of March
28th of March-1st of April
18th-22nd of April
25th-29th of April

What is on offer
– One week of residency space (Monday to Friday till 4pm) in our Peckham studio
– A commission fee to pay your artists £500 per person for 1-2 artists
– A work in progress showing to a group of children from Cherry Gardens School with complex needs OR to deaf and disabled adults from Southwark Disablement Association
– Two days of consultancy support from Extraordinary Bodies
– An artist meet up on Zoom. This is an opportunity to meet the other residency artists and share ideas. This will be on the 3rd of May at 4pm
– An optional £150 per day towards a support worker to meet access needs for the 5 days in the studio

There will be a Q&A at the end of the showings for you to ask any feedback from your audience and for them to ask you any questions about the work. 
We will be aiming to do the showings in person. If we need to put people's safety first and make them online, we will. This will be as a means to show the audiences your live work, and not to create a professional film. 

 

What else is available as part of the Programme?

There are a number of extra optional advice and mentoring opportunities available as part of the programme. In your application form, please choose as many or as few as you feel you’d benefit from at this time. These include:

– Use of the Aerial equipment available at the studio (please ask if you need anything specific) 
– Production mentoring; a 1-2-1 chat about the future of the work
– A behind the scenes video of your residency. See an example here
– Artist development check-ins 
– Social media guidance and assistance using Flying Fantastic’s networks to grow your audience

What do we ask in return?

-We ask that you put our logo on any marketing materials for the project
-Footage and photos of you working in the space to help us market this opportunity in the future
-A short evaluation form or phone call at the end of the residency to tell us what you thought
-A short workshop for the audience coming to watch

Access for Artists

Our Peckham venue is wheelchair accessible with accessible toilets. You can see a 360 tour of the studio here (please note, it is the downstairs studio you will be using). If you would like to organise an in person tour to come and see the studio before you write your application, you are welcome to- drop us an email amy@flyingfantastic.co.uk

As part of this opportunity, we can offer £150 per day for a support worker to meet access needs for the 5 days in the studio. 

If you have any questions about the access of the space, this opportunity or the application, please let us know! amy@flyingfantastic.co.uk

Image: A teal band with 2 logos. On the left, Arts Council England's black and white logo, which says 'supported using public funding by Arts Council England'. Underneath the logo, it says 'supported by' in black. On the right, Extraordinary Bodies' logo, which says 'Extraordinary Bodies' with a pale pink circle on the left of the text. Underneath the logo, it says 'partner' in black. 

Commission fee

Flying Fantastic Creative Residencies are Arts Council funded. This means that you cannot use our fee as match funding for an Arts Council Application. The reason we included the fee is because we understand that paid R&D time is valuable, and important to create quality work. This fee aims to cover your artist’s pay at equity rate.

We have based our programme funding on groups of 1-2 people to make this possible. Should your project include any extra volunteers, you are welcome to apply as long as you are aware of your volunteers' rights. Unfortunately, we cannot provide any payment for more than 2 people per group.

The fee available is the maximum amount that we have on offer. You are welcome to source additional funding from elsewhere if needed to cover other costs that you may have.

Image: 3 white female-presenting people in the studio described above. They are in a standing pyramid, with 2 people in a squat and 1 person stood in between them, with 1 foot on each of their legs. They all have their arms out to the sides and big grins on their faces. They are all wearing maroon dungarees with a black spade symbol on their chests and white T-shirts underneath. 

What are we looking for from successful applicants?

-Exciting ideas! We want to hear your creative ideas. 

-We want you to push boundaries and try out new approaches. 

-We want you to tell us how you will utilise what we are offering. 

-We are looking for work that has access at its core.

-Work that is in its early stages of development. We want to create a space for you to test ideas.

-We expect you to follow government guidelines in relation to COVID-19 restrictions.

-UK based individuals & organisations. You and your whole team must have the right to work in the UK and be based here.

-Movement-based work relating to dance, circus or theatre.

-We want to hear from people who we haven’t worked with before, as well as those we have. 

-Work with a future. While we appreciate not all R&D comes into fruition, we want to see that you’ve thought about the next stages of the project. 

-Most importantly we want this residency to benefit you as an artist or company. Although we are not specifying how much experience we’d like you to have, we will be looking for companies who we feel have enough experience to benefit. This will look different for different people, but we ask that this isn’t your first time choreographing or directing work. 

-We expect all successful companies & artists to have Public Liability Insurance, either for each individual such as Equity or as a company.

And what are we NOT looking for?

We're not looking to host existing shows. This programme is for the development of new work.
We do expect all applicants to have some relevant experience and are unable to accept applications from undergraduates.
We cannot work with artists based outside the UK.
We do not expect you to have partners in place for this work, as you will be partnering with Flying Fantastic, Extraordinary Bodies and Southwark Disablement Association or Cherry Gardens School. 

How will we select successful applicants?

Your application will be read or watched by 2 Flying Fantastic team members. Each will assess the application against our 4 criteria:
-Quality of idea (including its relevance to our audiences)
-Quality of previous work or experience 
-Future potential of the work
-How much the artist or company would benefit from the opportunity 

The strongest applications will be put forward to our mentoring partner; Extraordinary Bodies to choose the 4 groups they would like to work with. 

Image: A reception area with an orange floor and light blue and white zig zag patterned walls. There is a see through glass door into an aerial studio at the end of the reception area, with red silks hanging down and blue crash mats underneath them. There is a light blue rectangular wooden block in the centre of the space and a reception desk to the right that says 'reception' on it. On the wall, next to the reception desk, there is a big red notice board with various posters on it. Next to the notice board, in the corner, is a door with a drawing of a person hanging from a coat hanger on it. 

How to apply

The application deadline is 5pm on the 18th of February 2022. Any applications sent after 5pm will not be considered.
Ways to apply:
1. Use the online form available here.
2. Record a video answering all of the questions on the form and upload it here. If it is more accessible for you to email the video to us, then please do that instead, along with 2 links to examples of your work - amy@flyingfantastic.co.uk. The maximum length of video is 7 minutes. You can listen to a recording of the application form questions below. 

To view a document version of the application form, please click here. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL US THE DOCUMENT VERSION! If you do, we will not be able to consider your application. 

Once you've completed the application, please also complete an Equalities Monitoring Form here. This form can also be submitted via a phone call with one of our team, please email amy@flyingfantastic.co.uk to arrange. 
 

If you have any questions about Flying Fantastic Creative Residencies, please check our FAQs here. If your question still hasn't been answered or it is easier for you to send an email or voice memo, then do email amy@flyingfantastic.co.uk
 

If you need any support with the application process, let us know. We look forward to hearing from you and can't wait to read or listen to your creative ideas! 

Listen to the application questions here