According to Doug Francisco – Co-Founder and Creative Director
The Invisible Circus began as a street performance troupe in the carnivals and fiestas of Europe in the early 90’s. Based in Spain and Portugal we would travel in northern Europe touring for the summer months as well as summer season in the south, then following the sun to tour further afield in winter, visiting New Zealand, Australia and Thailand. The troupe would expand and contract depending on opportunities and bookings secured with the group constantly attracting new performers and developing a community ethos of sharing resources and splitting hats from street shows as we went.
We returned to the Uk in 2000 and began building the company into more of a stage production outfit working in festivals and community spaces (often occupied and opened as art spaces and performance venues), continuing the community ethos of sharing what we have into this next evolution. Our first big group show was part of the infamous Lost Vagueness fields in Glastonbury festival in 2002.
From this foundation of occupied spaces we continued to grow and went on to become a regular feature of some of the Uk’s more underground music festivals and independent venues, maintaining international missions until taking the step to become more permanently UK based when we moved to Bristol in 2005. One of the last international projects I am most proud of was returning to Thailand to assist with clean up operations and community activities after the 2004 Boxing day Tsunami having fundraised with shows in an old church building in London.
We began occupying old commercial and industrial buildings for performance and production bases In Bristol, starting out with an old car garage on Stokes Croft, from which we launched our sister company, and now registered arts charity, Artspace Lifespace. This saw us undertake a huge regeneration project on a former derelict cathedral in Clifton and host an independent 7-week festival program. It was from here we secured The Island, an entire city centre block encompassing a fire station, law courts and police station, which became world renowned when we hosted CarnyVille, a huge immersive spectacular with over 200 participating artists and performers.
Alongside this we continued to be a mainstay feature at UK festivals such as Glastonbury, entering into long term collaborations with Boomtown Fair and The Arcadia Spectacular. Another high point in the story was going to the Blackpool Winter Gardens to host The Last Waltz as part of the Showzam Festival and participating in a spectacle for Cirque Jules Verne in Amiens, France.
We have always maintained the ethos we developed in our days of a street performance troupe, sharing what we have in terms of resources and finances, supporting each other and new artists to develop their personal projects and careers by collaboration and creation of opportunities.
More recently our focus has been on building a secure foundation for the company and its community with the Unit 15 creation space and Loco Klub performance venue, making both spaces available for young companies and new projects to develop and showcase their work through a series of residency programmes, events and commercial opportunities. Our moto from our travelling days still stands – we share what we have!
