Russels circus visit

As my project is on The Night Circus it is important for me to be able to get firsthand research at a circus performance for my work. I was planning to go to London but fortunately there was a circus not far from university at Kings Lynn for a while so I went to visit with my housemate Ashleigh Berryman who is also a photography student and agreed to help me.

The circus performance does not include animals and is solely human performers. The show included some fantastically talented individuals, my favourite of which was the contortionist who bent herself into strange positions and held herself up on one hand. She will provide some great reference imagery for the contortionist character Tsukiko.

There were several acrobats who performed on suspended hoops, with one even performing on a giant hanging star shape. One of the final acts worked on a rope which at one point she used as a swing, towering over our heads at the top of the tent, which reminded me of the acrobat tent in the book where all the performers are at the top of the tent. Alongside the acrobats was also a tightrope artist on a pole who did back flips and somersaults and a group of dancing girls that also worked together to build human pyramid shapes.

I was surprised to see not only only jugglers but also fire breathers and fire jugglers who worked stunningly quickly in a blur of fire, just as is described in The Night Circus. Unfortunately the juggler was hard to capture as he moved so fast whilst the fire breather looks great as the fire becomes a blur of light.

My aim before I went was to draw first-hand whilst Ashleigh photographed but it was a lot darker in there than we had expected, and the only time it was light enough to draw the clown kindly came and drenched us with a hose… So in the end we both did a mixture of photography and film with Ashleigh able to get some more closeup shots for me.

Overall the visit was a real success and I've got some great footage to work from that will be really useful for when I come to illustrating the performers. It was interesting to see a traditional family-run circus as there was that sense of unity within the cast that is evident in the book.

For more information on the circus itself visit Russels International Circus.