The Educircation international project which focuses on educating teachers and professionals in the field of contemporary circus starts its second phase which concentrates on social circus and the use of circus techniques in therapy. The coordinators of the participating European organizations will meet in Prague on November 6 and 7.
The first edition of the international Educircation project which ran from 2010 to 2012 saw participation of theater institutions from 5 European countries: Associacio Valenciana De Circ (Spain), Hungarian Juggling Association (Hungary), The Invisible Circus (UK), Jonglier Katakomben gemeinnützige (Germany) and Cirqueon – Center For Contemporary Circus (Czech Republic). This year, Cirkus In Beweging from Belgium has joined the project.
“It was the social-circus workshop organized by Cirqueon at the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital last year that gave its participants the idea to continue this well initiated cooperation. The new project will give the participating circus teachers the opportunity to focus on the teaching and use of circus techniques with various specific groups, e.g., youths at risk, people with mental or physical disabilities, socially underprivileged families, ethnic minorities and seniors,” comments Barbora Adolfová, the project manager from Cirqueon – A Center For Contemporary Circus.
Therefore, the second edition of Educircation is devoted to social circus as an innovative option for creative social therapy. Each participating organization prepares a social-circus workshop focused on working with a specific group of clients. Just as last year, the Czech workshop will take place at the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital and will be based on the experience its lectures have gained in teaching regular workshops to the patients of the hospital during the previous years.
“Social circus is a dynamically evolving method which uses circus arts as a means for development of social, psychological, personal and motor skills. Social circus has turned out successful in aiding the prevention of criminality and other pathological social phenomena. Social Circus offers a whole range of activities, such as juggling, acrobatics, clown techniques, dance, music, etc. These activities are diverse enough for anybody to find one they find appealing. They require different skills which can be learned and perfected through these activities,” explains Adam Jarchovský, a lecturer of the social-circus workshops at the Bohnice hospital.
More information on EDUCIRCATION can be found at www.educircation.eu.
EDUCIRCATION is a European project for support of education of circus teachers administered by the Tolerdance organization. The main partner of the project is Cirqueon – A Center For Contemporary Circus.