A Summer of Cirque Bijou Magic part 1…
by Charlie Smalley (Freelance Stage Manager)
In late July we loaded the Cirque Bijou van and drove down to sunny Lulworth Estate in Dorset for our annual weekend of fun at Camp Bestival. This year was our second summer of animating the beautiful Navigation Town. Designed by Pete Bateman (the creative genius behind Bestival’s festival-within-a-festival, Caravanserai), Navigation Town is home to our colourful Navigators who’ve travelled from all over the world to share their stories and skills with the people of Bestival.
We had jugglers, fire-fighting clowns, aerial performers, roller-skating hula-hoopers, acrobats, magicians, balloon-modellers and bubbleologists, who entertained the crowds throughout the weekend. Each day began with our Opening Ceremony. This started with a communal sing-a-long of the Navigation Town anthem and culminated with an aerial show featuring four fantastic aerialists doing hoop, silks, rope and flying trapeze. The crowd were introduced to each of the Navigators in turn, and had a chance to meet them after the show and get their Camp Bestival passports stamped.
It’s always a challenge to get this many performers safely to site, set up in camp, into costume and through rehearsal – despite adverse weather, travel delays and new site layouts – in time for the first Opening Ceremony, but the reward is seeing the way that people’s eyes light up as they watch the aerialists swinging through the sky, or follow the trails of giant bubbles floating over their heads. All the hard work pays off when we witness the children laughing and gazing in open-mouthed wonderment at the performers, squealing with delight as they’re squirted by the clowns’ fire engine hose, and gasping in astonishment at the close-up magic.
Throughout the day there was plenty of opportunity for the kids to get involved in trying balloon modelling, hat juggling, bounty-hunting, and bubble popping, and the town was buzzing with activity all festival long.
This year we were joined by a host of other performing companies who provided interactive tennis and football games with comedic commentary (Fairly Famous Family), a beautiful musical show about cooking and travelling (Toast by PifPaf), Irish folk music and workshops (the Armagh Rhymers), hysterically funny juggling shows (Dan the Hat), and stunning walkabout performances (Sonia Sabri and Thingamujig). This added to the busy delight of Navigation Town, and kept the area full of people all weekend. We had lovely feedback from these companies about how well the area had been curated, and how well executed the whole experience was. They praised the way that we had integrated all the performers, navigators and musicians into the world of the town, and described the whole thing as a fantastic achievement.
Feedback from the punters was equally glowing. Many parents stopped us to note that Navigation Town was their favourite place to spend time in the festival, partly because the kids were completely engrossed in the world, but also because they themselves were enthralled by the magic. One woman told us that Navigation Town had helped her to rediscover her sense of childish wonder, and that she was
enjoying it every bit as much as her children. An aerial performer who had not heard of Cirque Bijou before attending Navigation Town came up to congratulate us on an amazing performance, and commented that she had never witnessed such a cohesive circus space at a festival.
One parent told us that her usually distracted and disinterested child had found a sense of focus and joy in watching the juggling and magic tricks across the weekend. Another set of parents came to thank us at the end of the weekend for allowing them a space to relax and enjoy spending time as a family, while being consistently entertained and surprised. It was a treat to hear of all the different ways that Navigation Town had delighted, astonished and beguiled, and we all had a wonderful time enjoying each other’s performances and company, and meeting all the lovely people who passed through the town.
In the evenings, a small group of us headed up to Caravanserai to entertain the crowds with a stunning aerial show featuring three of our incredible aerial artists, performing routines on rope, silks and flying trapeze, against the ramshackle brilliance of colourful caravans and glowing red festoon. This later set draws an older crowd of regular circus-lovers and surprised ravers who break off mid-dance to gawp
in wonder at the performers. We often spotted a few of the adult audience members down in Navigation Town the next day who were keen for more of the magic!
The highlight of the weekend was parading from Navigation Town up to the castle, and then all the way onto the mainstage, where our Navigators got to dance along to the CBeebies Read and Rave DJ Set. As the theme for the weekend this year was pyjama party, we lent our giant bed to Camp Bestival as decoration for the main stage. During our main stage slot our performers got to bounce, juggle and hula
hoop on and around the bed, popping confetti cannons left, right and centre and having a brilliant time with the amazing crowd who came to watch.
It’ll be hard to beat this year’s Camp Bestival next summer, but we’ll definitely give it our best shot!
You can read more about our work with Camp Bestival over the years here.
Looking to programme your own festival? Get in touch! We’d love to hear from you.