Community Development & Education Officer
Nofitstate Circus

Lynn C

00:00:02 My name’s Lynn. I’m the Community Development and Education Officer for Nofitstate Circus. I go out and I arrange outreach workshops. I run the training space that we have here. I liaise with different people to try to get the circus more popular throughout Wales. Previous to this I was, I was a performer for three years with the Immortal Show and then this job came up, so, I applied and I got it.

00:00:32 After I left school I went to Sixth Form and I did A levels and then after that I went to art college for a year and I did a foundation course in art. When it became a job I totally lost interest in art. I enjoyed it as a hobby and I think spending, doing fine art and spending my own time doing it I really enjoyed it but when it actually came to the idea of making a living from it I didn’t really want, I decided it wasn’t something I really wanted to do.

00:01:02 I’ve always been interested in circus and gymnastics and physical sports like that but I didn’t actually get involved until I was twenty-three. I started off as a youth worker and I happened to come across a course that somebody was running in circus skills and I thought, that sounds interesting, I’ll give it a go. And that totally inspired me and that’s how I ended up here.

00:01:28 What I brought with me today is “Circus in a Suitcase” by Reg Bolton. He was my first ever circus teacher and this was a book that he brought out. It’s been a bit of a bible for me but also it just reminds me of the week that I spent with him and the things that he taught me. I’d say in that week it just, it totally changed my life. I just met some really good people, good inspiring people and after that we stayed in touch and a lot of us started, we decided to work together and get a community circus together as a hobby.

00:02:06 As I got more and more into the skills myself and my skills improved I decided that I wanted to do it more seriously. So, there was a school opened in Bristol and it was the first circus school so I raised the money to do that and I went off for three months and did a really intensive three months there. I was there 12 hours a day pretty much learning and absolutely loved it. After that finished I bought a truck and I went off and I travelled Europe. Met a lot of amazing people, did lots of street shows with them and made a living like that for a few years.

00:02:46 When I was 16 I was really, painfully shy. I was really, really shy and I used to get bullied at school. I was, absolutely hated my last years of secondary school. I had no self-confidence whatsoever and, and the idea of going out and performing and being in front of people and doing anything, just stepping onto a stage would have just filled me with horror. Doing circus skills totally changed me I think. Built my confidence up, you know, gave, made me feel valued and, yeah, it gave me a lot of confidence.

00:03:23 The first time I ever did flying trapeze I’d gone to visit my friend in Paris who was at the trapeze school there and she got me to climb up onto a platform that was about 40 feet in the air. I think I shouted for my mum. I was just so, so terrified. But then once I was swinging it was such a good feeling and it was so exhilarating and it was just like, what was I scared of? You know, why did it take me five minutes to get off the platform?

00:03:50 If I could talk to myself at the age of 16 I think I would have reassured myself that there was things that I could do that I didn’t think I would be capable of and all I had to do was trust in myself, and have a go at stuff, and not put blocks up and not stop myself doing things just because I was worried about what people thought of me or what might happen. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. If you try things you might get ten times more out them than you think you will. ENDS