The spotlight is firmly focused on Invisible Circus this Spring, with a mammoth 30th anniversary celebration and a new artist residency at The Prospect Building promising to put one of the city’s most-cherished families of performers back on the regular show circuit. Rosanna Spence speaks to co-founder Doug Francisco to find out more… Pictured above: Doug Francisco (left) and Wim Penhaul (right) at Unit 15. Credit: Andre Pattenden
It’s been more than two years since I stood, mouth agape, staring up at the impossibly placed performers scaling the tall walls of Invisible Circus’s former Unit 15 home in Bristol’s now-redevelopment-laden industrial quarter tucked between Lawrence Hill and Temple Meads. I was watching Welcome to the Future, the company’s series of intoxicating farewell shows that masterfully blended melancholia with pride as the city’s home of raw circus talent closed its doors, evicted due to the area’s regeneration. Invisible Circus – the collective which has been a major organ keeping Bristol’s culture alive and kicking for decades – found itself at the receiving end of a major issue repeating itself across the city: dwindling spaces in which creatives can thrive.
Thankfully, those shows were very much a ‘see you shortly’ affair. The doors to Unit 15 may have closed, but like a phoenix soaring up from the company’s still-burning embers, Invisible Circus is once again rooted in the creative consciousness of citizens thanks to an incredible season of shows ahead: an upcoming 30th anniversary weekend of celebrations at Ashton Court Mansion (10-11 April), and a new artist residency at The Prospect Building starting this year.
And who better to illuminate this new chapter of the circus’s story for us than the company’s ringmaster maestro himself, Doug Francisco? Doug – who founded Invisible Circus with Wim Penhaul – has become something of a Bristol legend over the past 30 years, building a well-earned reputation for spotting, incubating and launching world-class circus talent from our little corner of the universe.
He’s also part of a network that has been spearheading Bristol’s cultural campaign to save spaces around the city and transforming them into hubs of creativity: including ArtSpace Lifespace (the local organisation founded by the Invisibles that has spent two decades rescuing neglected buildings and transforming them into spaces for creativity and community, such as SPARKS Bristol and The Island) and Loco Klub (an established and well-respected, inclusive entertainment venue. It’s worth popping by just to gaze at the back-bar decoration alone, trust me).
Doug’s a central patch on this tapestry of souls that have become the scaffolding supporting much of Bristol’s grassroots creative landscape behind the scenes. It’s precisely this fact which makes it even more difficult to hear that the past couple of years haven’t exactly been the smoothest for his circus.
“Losing our space [Unit 15] and the slow-motion nature of that whole eviction situation definitely took its toll,” he admits, explaining a distinct a lack of support from the council and developers involved.
Even though the immediate outlook has improved for the circus compared to two years ago, the group’s artistic purpose remains forever mesmerisingly entangled with activism, so I’m keen to know what Doug thinks the biggest threat to our city’s creative community is at the moment.
“It’s economic regeneration, isn’t it, and gentrification,” he says. “It’s the classic threat that’s been around since the Roman times. You see the same cycle: artists moving somewhere that’s maybe a bit run down, a bit cheap, and then they make it cool, and that attracts more people and the prices go up. Then suddenly there’s hardly any spaces left, because they’ve all been turned into luxury apartments or student flats, making someone a tidy profit along the way, which doesn’t seem to be getting reinvested into the community or culture it displaces. You would hope that Bristol can retain some of its soul amongst that.” He rightly laments the ongoing depletion of city spaces where people can “just make stuff, discover things and play.”
Return of the pack
Despite the at-times insurmountable pressures facing communities like Invisible Circus, the show must go on. The group has only been in a semi-state of chrysalis since it lost its official home. Some rest and recuperation have gone hand in hand with shows, including a recent cabaret number at The Mount Without in the centre of town with dance company Impermanence.
“They collaborated with us at Loco Klub in the early days,” Doug recalls. “They’re good friends and it’s a beautiful venue. We’d been talking about doing something there for a long time – Impermanence operates very much in our own ethos, and at The Mount Without even more so, rescuing an old building back from the edge. It was a great success; we sold the house out.”
Invisible Circus has also seen in the New Year at The Prospect Building more than once, which helped sow the seeds of the new residency which will see them make good use of the former torpedo warehouse’s vast interior this year (there’s more than enough height for the performers’ more vertically-daring feats). For now, it can feel like somewhere safe to weather the storm.
“The new residency came through existing personal friendships, and it all just sort of magically happened at the 11th hour, really,” Doug explains, modestly. “We always had great faith that the next opportunity would come along and the right thing would happen. The guys at Prospect asked if we needed space to regroup and think about what we could do in their space. They’ve obviously got an ongoing music programme, but they’re keen to do more than that and give back to the community, supporting the broader cultural offer of the city.”
With the rising commercial nature of many festivals now feeling at odds with Doug’s and the circus’s values, an artist residency in the heart of the Invisibles’ hometown feels like ideal “wholesome, community-based project” for the performers to sink their teeth into – with hopes that a large-scale, September show will be in the calendar soon.
Thirty years young
Even sooner than the highly-anticipated Prospect residency is the huge anniversary celebration this month at Ashton Court Mansion, marking 30 years since Doug and Wim first formed their travelling circus.
The boundary-blurring anniversary bonanza promises a labyrinth of immersive and daring performances, with riotous circus, theatre, live music, sideshow curiosities and decadent cabaret in a “living carnival” that can be discovered by roaming around the building.
“Thirty years! That’s more than half my life,” Doug laughs. “It’s a reflective time, yeah. It’s brought a lot of people out who’ve wanted to share stories about times past and things we’ve done. There are so many challenges in these modern times, and it suddenly puts everything into perspective. What do we really want to do? What do we want our legacy to be? What are the best parts of what has been, and how do we make something out of those bits that sails us into the future?”
The event also celebrates a 20-year partnership with the aforementioned Artspace Lifespace, which has been acting as custodian of the iconic Ashton Court Mansion, opening its doors to new audiences and demonstrating how historic buildings can thrive as community- led cultural hubs rather than a purely commercial venture – and the event this month also marks the ending of this tenure.
The greatest showman
Seeing as Doug’s been reflecting on the impact that the circus has had over the last three decades, I ask him what he values as the company’s legacy so far.
“We’ve been a part of a lot of other bigger things and festivals like Boomtown, Glastonbury and Arcadia,” he notes. (And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of creative influence on national cultural treasures.) “But I think the thing that’s really struck a chord and hit home for us lately is all the people that have come through Invisible Circus, or had opportunities through it, or who, you know, turned up at some crazy squat 20 years ago and are now touring the world with Cirque du Soleil,” he adds. “There are so many people who’ve mentioned to us how they started their ‘thing’ at one of our projects. That’s really heart-warming. That’s the real value of what we’ve done.”
Doug notes how it’s much harder to be a young artist today than when Invisible Circus first started out: “It would seem like there’s more opportunities and more commercial avenues. But really, it’s just not as easy to do your thing, find an audience and have that discovery time yourself. People are kind of ‘smooshed’ into this box where they ‘must make it work’ or ‘must make a business’ out of it.
“Even creative courses these days are all about how to make a business plan and a spreadsheet. But commercial viability doesn’t always make great art. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.”
Yes, times are hard, especially for creatives. And it’s impressive that even though it could be easy to feel jaded at the state of things – notably in the wake of the Unit 15 eviction – Doug holds onto hope.
“I’m just eternally optimistic, blindly ignorant and refuse to accept that the world is going to the dogs,” he says with a dry chuckle. “It’s often in times of hardship that opportunities occur; when change comes, it’s never usually at the end of a long and happy progressive time for humanity is it? It’s usually at terrible times when things have come to a head. I think things have to get worse before they get better. And boy, have things got worse.”
Invisible Circus is by no means facing its challenges alone. Support from loyal fans and audiences is unwavering.
They regularly sell out shows – and the upcoming performances at Ashton Court Estate and Prospect will be no exception, I’m sure. So. get tickets while you still can and long may the collective’s activism through art continue.
“We are really proud that everything we’ve done has never had core funding from anyone, it’s all been by the people for the people,” notes Doug. “Everything we’ve achieved has been thanks to the support of our members, our direct community and people that use our spaces and the audiences that come to the shows. I’m really immensely proud of that.
“I think now, more than ever, we need to try to galvanise that energy and fight for some kind of creative future in the city, because it will just disappear otherwise. We’ve seen this and experienced it first-hand. The prescient experience of our eviction from Unit 15 was that there is no safety net. But we thought we’d try one more time. Jump and see if a net appears. And this time it has, fortunately.”
Tickets for the 30th anniversary celebration at Ashton Court Mansion (10-11 April) are available from headfirstbristol.co.uk.
Keep up to date with details on The Prospect Building residency at theprospectbuilding.com | invisiblecircus.co.uk
