So an astrophysics and math student from New York runs away with the circus...

This is my attempt at a travel blog, to document and share my experiences in something few Americans have the chance to do.  There has been some interest among my group of friends for such a blog, but I hope to achieve more with it – namely, to promote a new image of the contemporary circus.  As I prepared to leave, I had the opportunity to share and explain my program to family and friends, as well as classmates, professors, and coworkers.  Responses have been informative, to say the least.  Some have asked about my experience in lion-taming.  Some seem to think the school is in a tent.  Many have wished me the best of luck at 'juggling camp,' perhaps thinking I'd be here with a bunch of kids.

I don't claim to be any kind of expert on contemporary circus, (hence taking a year to study it), but I have seen much of the juggling and circus community and I know that it deserves a better reputation than it seems to have.  As the Circomedia Artistic Director Bim Mason commented on our first day, on the arts in England, "you have opera, music, west end theatre, ballet, then down a bit is modern dance, then way down at the bottom is contemporary circus" (paraphrased).  Circomedia's goal is to raise circus on this scale, as it seems to be in Canada, France, and China.  Circus is an art, one that can generate visions impossible in other forms of performance.  As I study and train here, I hope to bring this message home.

Feel free to ask any questions about the program