FoolishPeople

'Cirxus' Photo Album now available to view

The photographs of 'Cirxus', taken by the talented Yiannis Katsaris can now be viewed in our online gallery.

Greek by birth, freelance photographer Yiannis has been working in London for over a year.

Previously Yiannis was based in Italy working in an advertising studio. He graduated from TEI in Athens with a BA in Photography. He also holds an MA in Photographic Journalism. Currently Yiannis works with national publications in both the UK and Greece.

During his career he’s photographed everything from models, environmental disasters, riots and even a pig farm. Though he would say his trickiest assignment was photographing female wrestlers, those ladies take no prisoners.

Yiannis is available for short and long term assignments in UK and abroad.

www.yianniskatsaris.com

Qype on Cirxus

"I was immediately immersed into a warped, greying, eerie-looking place lost by time and the rest of the world; a group of circus performers, abandoned in a place, where all they have left is pieces of memories, that they desprately try to make sense of. We hear of the stories of a tear-sodden, soot stained ballerina that is looking for her lost love, Loudon the clown. Koca the great, a man that seems so trapped within his own performance that he has forgotten who he really is; a husband and wife trapped in one female body are just some of the mutated horrors that greet us within the Cirxus story." 

Heleana Quartey of Qype does London on Cirxus.

The Home Sweet Home

Tonight we make the Home Sweet Home, the last show of the season. Thank you to everyone who has joined us on the journey through this riparian landscape, to the Black Pool. 

FP will be back later this year.

Photography by Yiannis Katsaris

Cirxus closes on Saturday- only 2 nights left!

Photography by Yiannis Katsaris

The Shadows of Calder Hall

Photography by Yiannis Katsaris

Walking Through and Writing About Cirxus

Some reports of a couple writer's first walk through the features of the Cirxus landscape are out.

What's On Stage says among other things:

The stark and industrial setting for this piece of promenade theatre is instantly eerie and unnerving. There are posters of atomic bombs and mushroom clouds, a ghost-like woman wandering around with an accompanying rattle of radioactivity and a classroom dedicated to the study of all things nuclear; all reminds us why we find ourselves in this warped environment...

... The experience is simultaneously funny and disconcerting. Whilst involved in one situation there are many other scenarios happening around the space which you are not witnessing, adding to the idea of the unknown and therefore making every audience member’s experience completely unique.

Click here for the full review

Quoth Remote Goat:

...Cirxus had a great overlaying mystery to it. Who were these people and what had happened to them? What was their "Home Sweet Home"? Picking up clues from snatches of scenes, led to the potential for answers through a kind of linear intermission, where a key character was introduced and the audience was specifically guided once more...

...Writer and director, John Harrigan deserves a lot of credit for the organisation of this brilliant cobweb of a performance, and for making something that could have gone so wrong, go so well. It's a great juggling act, worthy of the big top.

The lighting was ominous and the random groans reverberating through the warehouse added chillingly brilliantly to the sinister tone.

Read the rest of the review at Remote Goat

Showing until 13/06/09 Arcola Theatre | 27 Arcola Street, London, E8 2DJ

Cirxus - Seascale Atomic Village

 

Photography by Yiannis Katsaris

CIRXUS - Irradiated History

Cirxus £10 ticket offer ends tomorrow for all tickets purchased over the phone 0207 503 1646.

Photography by Yiannis Katsaris

Cirxus - Opens Tomorrow - Transmits perpetually

CIRXUS - OPENS In One Week - Monday 25th May 8:30pm

25th May - 13th June 2009 

Starting time: 

8.30pm & 9.00pm 

STUDIO K 

Written and directed by John Harrigan 

1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus is an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station. FoolishPeople will use mythology, shamanism, music and dance to bring the darkness of an atomic circus to life. The performance will allow audience members to step into the world of an old English circus lost in the 1950s, explore its sideshows and meet extraordinary characters from the past and future.

Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the Clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season. Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows on the other side of time. Immerse yourself in the world of Cirxus, where theatric arcana and Atomic fallout irradiate the sawdust arenas of our inner worlds.

Presented by FoolishPeople

Written and Directed by John Harrigan

Creative Team 

John Harrigan 

Lucy Allin 

Victoria Karlsson 

P. Emerson Williams 

Claire Tregellas 

Tereza Kamenicka 

This is a promenade performance in Arcola's new industrial space, Studio K. Cirxus is based on fact: the German Bremen University confirmed that radioactive contamination by Americium-241 found in some soil samples taken by Greenpeace 11.5 km south of Sellafield, were 400 times higher than those taken 11 km from Chernobyl. 51 years on, the villagers of Seascale still live with the ramifications of the accident at Pile 1 of the Windscale Works Atomic Energy Factory. 

Cirxus will be FoolishPeople's first London performance run since the critically acclaimed Dead Language at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2007. 

[ Buy Tickets ]

TICKET INFORMATION: 

• Ticket Prices £14/£10 

• Tuesdays 'PAY WHAT YOU CAN' (subject to availability) 

• Free tickets are available for under 26s under the Night Less Ordinary Free Ticket Scheme Monday-Thursday evenings for the first 2 weeks (please ring box office more information) PLEASE NOTE: 

• No concessions on Fridays and Saturdays 

• Proof will be required for concessions 

• All tickets are NON-REFUNDABLE 

Cirxus Image by P. Emerson Willliams.

The Eye of Mr. Slin

Tension and disappearing. Sailors drown, crew die, people are replaced. Might I take the liberty to enquire that you have found your replacements? To fill in for you and keep the memory of who you are alive and well, as it were. Of course you have! Good. Very sensible indeed! Now listen, can you hear that wonderful noise? Two villages are fusing as a bridge of molten uranium connects two landscapes into one geographic location. Dear táttipáni, welcome to the Windscale Works Atomic Factory.

Download The.Eye.of.Mr.Slin

The GSpot: User's Manual for the Human Experience- CIRXUS

The GSpot: User's Manual for the Human Experience- CIRXUS

Joseph Matheny talks to Michael Dean about his newest book, A USER'S MANUAL FOR THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. Also in this show: Sleepchamber and and excerpt from the Foolishpeople production of CIRXUS.

Show dedicated to my dearly departed friend: Dave Szulborski

Information: In the SLEEPCHAMBER bit, John Zewizz and co. gives updates on the band, shares tracks from the forthcoming album "Stolen Sleep", and thanks the fans and collaborators who have supported the return of SLEEPCHAMBER.

Exerpt from Cirxus, a FoolishPeople production written and directed by John Harrigan. This psycho-audio sequence is produced and performed by P. Emerson Williams and directed by John Harrigan. A promenade performance will run from 25th May - 13th June 2009 in Arcola Theatre's new industrial space, Studio K in London.

CIRXUS

GSpot- Falcon, Falcon, Burning Bright?

GSpot- Falcon, Falcon, Burning Bright?

Joseph Matheny talks to Nick Thacher and Linda Miller about Falcon Press and why there appears to be two Falcon's selling virtually the same catalogs since the death of Dr. Hyatt. Also in this episode:

A new In Your Ear with Psuke, and a special bonus track at the end: James Curcio presents the first installment of the Join My Cult audiobook, and releases Join My Cult as a Creative Commons PDF that you may download at Original Falcon. Also, as a side note, we were contacted after this show was recorded by an organization calling itself the New EII. Keep an eye open for an interview with them in the future.

Keywords: Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Christopher Hyatt, Alan Miller, Falcon Press, Aleister Crowley, Antero Ali, Israel Regardie, Golden Dawn, Nick Tharcher, Linda Miller, Original Falcon, New Falcon, Joseph Matheny, James Curcio, Join My Cult

The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley by Chris Goode

An old friend of mine Chris Goode has a new solo show that's currently touring. Chris is an amazing writer and performer and I see no reason that you should miss out on...

'The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley' 

Contact Theatre, Manchester. 23-25 April 2009, 7.30pm. £8/£5. Book online. 

Then touring:

Northern Stage, Newcastle, 7-9 May; 

Tobacco Factory, Bristol, 12+13 May; 

Jersey Arts Centre, 16 May;

 

Contact, Manchester as part of Queer Up North, 19-23 May; 

New Wolsey, Ipswich, 1+2 June; 

Corn Exchange, Newbury, 4 June; 

Ustinov Studio, Bath, 5+6 June; 

South Hill Park, Bracknell, 9 June; 

Drum, Plymouth, 23-27 June.

CIRXUS - Tickets Now Available!

25th May - 13th June 2009 

Starting time: 

8.30pm & 9.00pm 

STUDIO K 

Written and directed by John Harrigan 

1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus is an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station. FoolishPeople will use mythology, shamanism, music and dance to bring the darkness of an atomic circus to life. The performance will allow audience members to step into the world of an old English circus lost in the 1950s, explore its sideshows and meet extraordinary characters from the past and future.

Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the Clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season. Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows on the other side of time. Immerse yourself in the world of Cirxus, where theatric arcana and Atomic fallout irradiate the sawdust arenas of our inner worlds.

Presented by FoolishPeople

Written and Directed by John Harrigan

Creative Team 

John Harrigan 

Lucy Allin 

Victoria Karlsson 

P. Emerson Williams 

Claire Tregellas 

Tereza Kamenicka 

This is a promenade performance in Arcola's new industrial space, Studio K. Cirxus is based on fact: the German Bremen University confirmed that radioactive contamination by Americium-241 found in some soil samples taken by Greenpeace 11.5 km south of Sellafield, were 400 times higher than those taken 11 km from Chernobyl. 51 years on, the villagers of Seascale still live with the ramifications of the accident at Pile 1 of the Windscale Works Atomic Energy Factory. 

Cirxus will be FoolishPeople's first London performance run since the critically acclaimed Dead Language at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2007. 

[ Buy Tickets ]

TICKET INFORMATION: 

• Ticket Prices £14/£10 

• Tuesdays 'PAY WHAT YOU CAN' (subject to availability) 

• Free tickets are available for under 26s under the Night Less Ordinary Free Ticket Scheme Monday-Thursday evenings for the first 2 weeks (please ring box office more information) PLEASE NOTE: 

• No concessions on Fridays and Saturdays 

• Proof will be required for concessions 

• All tickets are NON-REFUNDABLE 

Cirxus Image by P. Emerson Willliams.

The Marvel: Richard Carbonneau

The Marvel: Richard Carbonneau In keeping with the shows new theme of DIY art, Joseph Matheny talks to Richard Carbonneau, author of the comic story of the life of Jack Parsons, called: The Marvel as well as other great web comics. Also, a new episode of A Concise Guide to Setting Yourself on Fire with Kara Rae Garland.

FoolishPeople Present CIRXUS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - LONDON 14/04/09

FoolishPeople present
CIRXUS
Written and directed by John Harrigan

25 May - 13 June 2009 Arcola Theatre
Press Night Thursday 28 May 8.30pm

FoolishPeople present Cirxus a promenade performance in Arcola's new industrial space, Unit K.

FoolishPeople will use mythology, shamanism, music and dance to bring the darkness of an atomic circus to life. The performance will allow audience members to step into the world of an old English circus lost in the 1950s, explore its sideshows and meet extraordinary characters from the past and future.

1957- Seascale, the North of England. Cirxus is an old English circus lost in the shadows of the smoke stacks of Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station.

Athalia the ballerina waits in the ring for Loudon the Clown to return with directions to the Black Pool, the mythic site of the Home Sweet Home, the final show of the season. Join her as she begins a bizarre and wondrous search for Loudon through the irradiated secrets of Cirxus, where she must face the macabre atomic menagerie, haunted by circus animals and navigate her way through the maze of strange, hallucinogenic sideshows on the other side of time.

Immerse yourself in the world of Cirxus, where theatric arcana and Atomic fallout irradiate the sawdust arenas of our inner worlds.

Cirxus is based on fact: the German Bremen University confirmed that radioactive contamination by Americium-241 found in some soil samples taken by Greenpeace 11.5 km south of Sellafield, were 400 times higher than those taken 11 km from Chernobyl. 51 years on, the villagers of Seascale still live with the ramifications of the accident at Pile 1 of the Windscale Works Atomic Energy Factory.

Cirxus will be FoolishPeople's first London performance run since the critically acclaimed Dead Language which was performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2007. Dead Language was part of the London Lates season of cultural events and selected for the Times ‘Top Five Events’.

FoolishPeople's core creative team for Cirxus consists of John Harrigan, Lucy Allin, Victoria Karlsson, P. Emerson Williams, Claire Tregellas, Tereza Kamenicka & Paron Mead.

Listings Information:
Cirxus
24 May- 13 June 2009
8.30pm & 9.15pm entrance times
£14/£10 concessions
Pay what you can Tuesday (tickets from 7pm, subject to availability)
Free tickets are available for under 26s on Monday-Thursday evenings for the first 2 weeks
Book online: arcolatheatre.com
Box office: 020 7503 1646
Arcola Theatre Unit K, 27 Arcola Street, E8 2DJ

Notes to editors:

• FoolishPeople are currently in pre-production with Mythos Media and DPRGRM for a feature film entitled 'Y', which is being shot in Los Angeles CA in July 2009. 'Y' was written by John Harrigan and James Curcio and directed by Joseph Matheny.
• FoolishPeople have been creating art, theatre, film, books & collaborative events since 1989. 
• Arcola's Unit K will officially launch in July 2009 with Create Festival 2009.
• Cirxus is sponsored by The Movieum of London, Chisenhale Dance Space and The Courtyard.

For further information, please contact:
art@foolishpeople.org or visit: foolishpeople.org

Download PDF of Cirxus Press Release

Tea Dance

If you're free tonight and fancy a dance, Mr Slin is hosting the annual S.A.S.R.A. tea dance.

Maryam Hashemi & Tim Lewis - Inspired by Canals - Painting & Photography Exhibition

I highly recommend this art show by Maryam, a very good friend of mine. FP worked with Maryam on the first Terra.