The project aims to support the development and renewal of circus arts practices by offering professional artists a structured and stimulating mentorship experience. It seeks to encourage creative exploration, research-creation and the deepening of artistic approaches, while fostering the emergence of new movement vocabularies, dramaturgical perspectives and ways of working that go beyond technical performance alone.
To achieve these objectives, the project offers a mentorship pathway based on a collaborative and hands-on approach. Workshops combining physical work, technical adaptation, research-creation and group exchanges allow participants to develop expressive tools, refine their creative processes and strengthen their artistic thinking. The mentorship is delivered in four Canadian cities — Moncton, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver — in collaboration with local partners and host venues from the circus sector, ensuring strong local anchoring and responsiveness to regional realities.
Expected outcomes include strengthened artistic quality of the works developed, increased creative autonomy among participating artists, and the creation of small circus forms that can adapt to a variety of presentation contexts. The project also aims to foster knowledge-sharing among artists, strengthen connections within the sector, and lay the groundwork for a mentorship model that can inspire other initiatives at the national level.
Stay tuned for our upcoming updates.
This project is made possible thanks to the participation of the Canada Council for the Arts.
