CIRCLE | FEDEC students take the floor!

CIRCLE: student creation in the spotlight

Since 2007, the CIRCLE project has enabled around sixty students to present 30-minute shows at one of the largest European gatherings dedicated to contemporary circus: the Circa Festival in Auch (FRA).

As FEDEC's flagship project, CIRCLE offers students both an experience where they have creative freedom, without any themes or aesthetic restrictions, and an experience away from school for several days which supplements the vocational training programmes.

CIRCLE is the missing link between vocational training, the professional environment and the public.

The Aftershows

Each CIRCLE performance is followed by an Aftershow, where the audience, the artists and their educational team are able to meet each other. This precious discussion time provides students with the opportunity to answer the audience’s questions and share their creative processes, their artistic approaches and their inspirations and aspirations.

The first step towards employment

For future graduates, CIRCLE is often their first contact with working life. They perform under professional conditions, in front of an audience, with a technical team and surrounded by professionals and festival supervisors. FEDEC also organises a workshop with a company programmed by the festival for all students.

A rich learning experience

Participating in CIRCLE is an opportunity for students to:

prepare for time-limited collective work,
meet students from other schools around the world and share a workshop,
experiment with new forms and combinations,
have a real professional experience and expand their network,
acquire new skills (soft skills, artistic, technical and linguistic skills),

be confronted with the reality on the ground at the start of an artistic career and identify their difficulties, doubts and needs,
improve their employability.

How can you take part in CIRCLE?

Would you like your school to be involved in the project? Keep an eye out for the call for participation sent by email to our member schools every spring!

Conditions for participation (please note, they may vary from one edition to another):

Students participating in the project must be currently enrolled in the school or newly graduated.
The group has a maximum of 8 students on stage.

The performance must last 30 minutes.
Technical requirements must be limited and realistic.
Safety requirements must be taken into account and complied with. Protection measures must be provided and incorporated by all schools.
Participants must be aged 18 or over.
Participants have to stay for the whole week of the CIRCLE project.

Depending on the specific criteria of each edition, the performances can be single creations or collaborations between schools.

How are participating schools selected?

Participating schools are selected by the team and the ‘Students project’ Working Group according to the following priority criteria:

Application submitted on time
Application from a school that has never performed or least recently performed at Circa.
Collaboration between at least 2 schools, with priority given when the schools are not in the same country followed by priority given when at least one has never performed or least recently performed at Circa.
Geographical representation (the applications furthest away from Auch are prioritised).

Next edition

Previous editions

A question about CIRCLE?

> Contact us at events@fedec.eu!

We would like to thank the CNAC for mobilizing cnac.tv which has filmed and edited all CIRCLE performances since the first edition.