Uncharted
Show Programme
A Warm Welcome
Welcome to Uncharted!
We hope you enjoy this showcase of our second year degree students’ devised performances. Prepare to be amazed by a captivating mix of bold, cutting-edge circus disciplines that push the limits of what’s possible.
The National Centre for Circus Arts is a registered charity and one of Europe’s leading providers of circus education.
Their diverse range of work includes professional development opportunities for aspiring and established performers, recreational classes for adults, and progressive training for under-18s. Their Higher education course is a full 3-year BA (Hons) in Circus Arts Degree. They enrol around 30 new students each year and our graduates have gone on to join companies such as Giffords, Cirque du Soleil, Ockham’s Razor, Cirque Eloize, Seven Fingers, Circa and GOM, or set up their own circus production companies such as Three Legged Race Productions, Barely Methodical Troupe, Brainfools and Revel Pucks.
The National Centre celebrates over 30 years of fostering the development of circus professionals across the UK.
Ragnarök
The berserkers were elite Viking warriors who were known to enter a trance like state when in battle. They were known for their savagery in war and their animal skin clothes.
Rhiannon Murphy
Discipline: Chinese Pole
Other Skills: Dance, Acrobatics and Fire Performer
Jack of All Flames
“Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.”
Curiosity, all-consuming passion and guilt… Using the character of the mythical Phoenix, this piece reflects the emotions along a polymath’s journey of discovering a new interest, learning the ropes fast and subsequently letting it go and finding something new.
It explores the history of the saying starting with the Renaissance, which celebrated people with many talents, through to the Industrial Revolution, when specialisation became more prevalent. In today’s world, while it is advantageous to be a specialist, if you are not in the top 1%, it is more helpful to be versatile and adaptable.
Bara Dankova
Discipline: Cyr Wheel
Other skills: Aerial Rope, Silks and Hoop and Acro Dance
Black Rose
This piece has combination of aerial hoop and acro dance using each trick and shape to blend the elegance and raw power into a captivating performance.
Amelia Rosier-Denton
Discipline: Aerial Hoop
Other skills: Acrobatics and Dance
Dance with Fear
Handbalancing dance with your Fear.
Is Fear our friend or enemy?
A journey through the eyes of the performer showing how fear can affect you. Whether to change you, bind you, free you… the choice is yours. The more you are running away from something, the more you running towards it.
Ewa Kozlowska
Discipline: Hand balancing
Other skills: Clowning and Contortion
Uprising
An aerial straps act navigating themes of solidarity and empowerment through dynamic movement and acrobatics.
Lauren Gibbs
Discipline: Aerial Straps
Other skills: Aerial skills, Acrobatics and Dance
Twixt
My aerial pole act is a one woman show exploring the emotional journey facing the tension between fear and hope. It’s just not a physical discipline but a powerful tool for mental health. A reminder that each journey of self-expression is unique.
Walleska Moran
Discipline: Aerial Pole
Other skills: Chinese Pole and Grounded Pole Dance
Blodeuwedd
Based on the classic Welsh folk story from the Mabinogion, Blodeuwedd explores the life of a woman made out of flowers simply to be a wife. Despite her innate beauty, there is a darkness inside, an anger from being ripped away from her home. Using music in the Welsh language and flowy dance trapeze, this piece looks at how a patriarchal society draws women away from nature and how women are desperate to return to it.
Katie Jenkins
Discipline: Trapeze
Other skills: Aerial Hoop, Contemporary Dance, Partner Acrobatics and Musical Theatre
Heartbeat
This piece explores the biological process of how the heart beats. It follows the journey of how the blood is pumped through the heart and represents the intricate steps that occur in the structures as chambers contract, pressure changes and blood flows.
Vida Blenkhorn
Discipline: Aerial Silks
Other skills: Partner Acrobatics, Aerial skills, Juggling and Unicycling
Scarlet Echoes
Samara Santos
Discipline: Aerial Hoop
Other skills: Dance, Contortion and Aerial skills
Baggy Trousers
I’m flying A
I’m flying W
I’m flying A
I’m flying Y
¯\(°_o)/¯
Clusterf*ck
A microcosm of inattentive ADHD.
Freddie Maw
Discipline: Acro Dance
Other skills: Juggling, Hand-to-hand and Trampoline
Imagine
Close your eyes, be very still, and imagine…
Leah is a circus artist with autism and ADHD, passionate about using circus to celebrate the often-overlooked strengths of neurodivergent minds. Too often, neurodiverse people are made to feel broken in a world built for the neurotypical. But what if we saw things differently? What if we recognised the beautiful creativity that neurodiversity brings to the world?
Imagine invites you into an underwater dreamscape, inspired by a meditation from Leah’s childhood. Watch as she transforms from a sleepless child into a mermaid, gracefully spinning through the currents of the story on her Cyr wheel. As the unconscious mind takes hold of the narrative, she rises above the waves, suspended in her aerial Cyr wheel – unveiling a new circus discipline performed in a way never seen before!
Leah Cash
Discipline: Cyr Wheel and Aerial Cyr Wheel
Other skills: Aerial skills, Hand balancing, Acrobatics, and Piano
The Unsettled Soul
This performance explores the emotional journey of an individual who can never feel truly happy where they are. They constantly question their decisions, if they are where they are supposed to be, or if they are missing out on meaningful moments with loved ones around the world. The performance expresses this inner turmoil through the use of rope and Chinese pole, with the performer shifting between the two to symbolise the ongoing search for stability, belonging, and self-acceptance. The theme of “the grass is always greener on the other side” is central to this journey, as the performer continuously moves between the apparatuses, each representing different places, choices, or versions of happiness that always seem just out of reach.
Pick your shots clean
Taking you back in time to the late 19th century where criminal street gangs are on the rise.
Macy Fenwick
Discipline: Cyr Wheel
Other skills: Acrobatics, Teeter Board, Trampoline and Dance
Warrior
Turning the pain into power in this hand balancing act blending strength, balance, and dynamic movement. Every inverted shape embodies the spirit of a warrior.
Submerged
Sink into an out of body experience as the force of the ocean pulls you under. Alone in the vastness do you fight or let the currents drag you under?
Tamsin Bowles
Discipline: Aerial Hoop
Other skills: Aerial, Acrobatics, Dance and Juggling
Raze
‘Raze’ explores what it means to combine installation art with aerial straps in this ominous piece, derived from the idea of reconstructing a human after razing them down.
Penelope O’Donnell
Discipline: Aerial Straps
Other skills: Aerial Hoop, Dance Trapeze and Aerial Loops
Phantom
Inspired by ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, this flying pole piece explores the mask we wear to appear confident, while hiding our inner fears.
Alex Kyriacou
Discipline: Aerial Pole
Other skills: Aerial skills, Static Pole and Contortion
That’s life!
You want me to what? Mime?? Again??
That’s life is a tongue in cheek solo clowning piece following a sad mime. Inspired by Lecoq and Tati, it uses physical comedy and aerial rope to explore the absurdity that is life!
Rachel Bea Raynes
Discipline: Rope
Other skills: Flying Trapeze, Doubles Trapeze and Saxophone
The Life Of A Ballad
In a world full of grief, mortality, and the inevitability of age, how do we find peace in the life we have lived, and in the unknown? Join a girl as she seeks the answer to accepting death as more than an enemy, and realises the wisdom in overcoming her fears.
Alanna Clay
Discipline: Dance Trapeze
Other skills: Aerial Hoop, Contortion, Handbalancing, Aerial Hammock, Straps and Musical Theatre
In Dreams
In a world balanced between imagination and reality, our dreams are born.
‘In Dreams’ uses juggling to explore the line between what we know and what we wish for.
Chloe Partridge
Discipline: Juggling
Other skills: Partner Acrobatics, Hula Hoop and Rolla Bolla
Yimika
What story do you see?
‘Yimika,’ is a synergetic performance peice intertwining and exposing parts of the process and creation of a 4 minute act.
Graces’ first performance uses aerial straps as a main discipline,. It attempts to break the performer and participant barrier as she arrives at the final //(slash) first stage of a performance. This has taken her on a journey of rigorous editing, wholesome collaborations, anatomy and emotional research and pure passion for performance in all that the word even means.
A joint force of creative direction, movement exploration, design, videography ++ and pure tenacity to keep creating.
Grace Aluko
Discipline: Aerial Straps
Other skills: Experimental arts and Aerial Acrobatics
As if there never was a you
Johannes wakes up in a strange place, unsure of who or where he is. Rosa soon appears — but are they on the same side?
A mysterious encounter inspired by David Lynch’s cinematic universe.
Rosa and Johannes
Discipline: Hand-to-hand
Crew
Producers – Adrian Porter & Joe O’Neill
Production & Company Stage Manager on book – Sophie Oxenbury
Sound Programmer – Sunni Jolli
Creative Rigger – Matt Burch
Show Rigger – Phoebe Bryan
ASM – Leo Thoma-Stemmet
Creative Consultants – Neus Gil Cortes & Ed Stephens
A special thank you to Jacksons Lane for their huge and generous support
The Future Formed programme support Waltham Forest residents into creative careers, creating alternative pathways and broadening representation. The ASM on this production has been supported by their Future Technician programme.
We’ve always been passionate about ensuring our students have high-quality opportunities to perform their work and donations have helped us continue to produce these shows. But, as with many producing theatres in recent times, the cost of delivery has rapidly increased, and it now costs us roughly £100,000 every year to put on our student productions.
Please consider making a donation today and help support this hugely important part of the learning journey.
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