Access Settings
Access Settings
Extraordinary Bodies
Sign up to our newsletter
  • About us
  • Our work
  • Support us
  • News
  • Contact us
  • Sign up to our newsletter
Colour Black & White High Contrast Text only
Text size: A A A A
Skip to content
  • About us
  • Our work
  • Support us
  • News
  • Contact us

Our work

Circus Around & About 2  

Click for more information
Click for more information

Earth, Wheels, Air

Click for more information
Click for more information
A group of diverse performers engage in an expressive aerial dance routine in a spacious studio with large windows. One performer, suspended in a wheelchair with the support of harnesses, gracefully lifts a fellow dancer who reaches towards him. Another dancer balances on one foot with an outstretched arm, adding to the dynamic movement. The composition captures strength, collaboration, and inclusivity in an artistic performance.

Waldo’s Circus of Magic & Terror

Click for more information
Click for more information
The main image is two performers sat on a raised tight wire in a dark circus tent. The circus tent is decorated with gold stars and bunting. To the right is the main character, Krista who is a young white woman of short stature with short brown hair looking away into the distance. To the left is Gerhard, a young white man with short brown hair, who gazes intently at the other performer, Krista, as he reaches his hand to touch her. Both characters’ costumes are in the style of the 1930s. Hers is a shiny silver beaded corset with white silk shorts, tights and black shoes. He looks elegant in brown trousers and a brown waistcoat over a long-sleeved white shirt and black shoes. Underneath the two performers burns a small fierce fire with red flames, reaching the soles of their feet and signifying the danger beneath this love story" Photo credit: Paul Blakemore Design by Studio Stiles

Touring Diverse Led Circus

Click for more information
Click for more information
Black background, soft blue spotlight falling from the top of the image. Extraordinary Bodies logo in white: a rounded "E" and "B" hugging each other, forming a shape that suggests movement and flow. It resembles a nautical or a Möbius knot a little. The shape is coloured by a gradient that goes from pink on the left to orange on the right. A photo of mixed-race woman swinging from a circus rope, a bright smile on her face. Her body appears to be passing through the top part of the "B" letter as if going through a hoop.

Connecting Communities

Click for more information
Click for more information
Black and white image. Outdoors setting. A diverse group of lovely people stand, crouch and sit in wheelchairs together for a group photo. They're all in front of a large 3D sign that reads "TR2".

Extraordinary Bodies Young Artists

Click for more information
Click for more information

Delicate

Click for more information
Click for more information
Four performers on a dark stage. The left half of the image is filled with a large ladder, under which a white woman in her thirties stands, balancing herself on a wheelchair. She tips the wheelchair onto its back wheels with her weight, holds onto the ladder with one arm, and smiles, looking proud and strong. To her left, a mixed race man in his thirties stands, holding an old rectangular red school suitcase in his left hand. He looks up dreamily to the third performer, who is a white man in his forties. The third performer is about two metres above the ground, using his left arm to clamp himself onto the bar. His looks like he is almost sitting in the air. His face is in the shadow. Below, on the far left, a white woman in her seventies sits on a red armchair. Its colour matches the second performer's travel case. She rests her head on her right hand, her elbow resting on the armchair. Her eyes are closed.

The Delicate Podcast

Click for more information
Click for more information
White background. All elements in the image are coloured with a gradients that ranges from teal, to electric blue, passing through magenta, orange ad dark yellow. On the left, writing in soft rounded letters: "The Delicate Podcast", each words on a separate line. On the right, a hand-drawn illustration of five people: two of them are hugging, another is sitting in a wheelchair with his back to us, and the two others are observing, maybe listening or concentrating on something. In the bottom left corner, small words in blue read: "Illustration by Holly O'Neil".

Human

Click for more information
Click for more information
Black background. A photo of a woman and a man swinging in the air like a pendulum, looking powerful and graceful. They share a wheelchair which is held up in the air by black circus straps. She has frizzy brown hair, muscular arms and wears a grey tank top She is sitting on knees on his thighs and one of her arms holds the straps above her head while the other points down towards the floor. He has a neatly trimmed brown beard, muscular arms and wears a black tank top. He holds the straps to the sides of his chest with both hands. The image captures them at the highest point of the swing, to our right, bringing the man to an upside-down position with the woman above him. Their bodies are doing something hard, but their strength makes it look effortless. One word written in brush-stroke style letters to the right of the photo: 'Human'. The colour of the text is a gradient made of bright colours: teal at the top of the "H" and orange at the bottom and notes of prink at the top of all other letters.

Human: The Films

Click for more information
Click for more information
Screenshot of a film playing on a screen. A teal-coloured play bar at the bottom shows we're almost at the end of a long video. The video shows a white man wearing a light blue striped short-leeved shirt, a thick padlock on a chain around his neck and hair in a signature Kiss curl. Behind him, music kit and instruments and a living room setting.

Green Space Dark Skies

Click for more information
Click for more information

Digital

Click for more information
Click for more information
GIF: Images of disabled and non-disabled, black and white performers appear one after the other. They are all performing from their home.

The Future of Circus

Click for more information
Click for more information
Extraordinary Bodies artists form 2 lines in the National Theatre Studios. A red aerial hoop hangs above their heads from circus rigging. Claire holds a microphone, Jonny is set up at the drums.

Splash!

Click for more information
Click for more information
A young mixed-race woman is smiling and holding up a puppet of a girl with blond hair, an orange top and fish-like turquoise scales of her face.

What Am I Worth?

Click for more information
Click for more information
Suspended from the ceiling and surrounded by explosions of colourful chalk, two performers sit in a wheelchair, their muscly arms revealed

Weighting

Click for more information
Click for more information
Jamie flies in the air on an aerial harness, his arms outstretched with an ecstatic expression on his face, a bright blue sky behind him.

Extraordinary Bodies & The British Paraorchestra

Click for more information
Click for more information
Dave Young sits in his wheelchair on stage, with green staging light bursting behind him. His arms are in the air and mouth wide open. The British Paraorchestra sit behind him playing instruments.
  • About us
  • Our work
  • Support us
  • News
  • Contact us
Extraordinary Bodies is a partnership between Cirque Bijou and Diverse City.
We are funded by Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the National Lottery.
Diverse City
Cirque Bijou
Arts Council
© Extraordinary Bodies 2017 - 2025
Website by Doc&Tee

https://www.extraordinarybodies.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/waiw-audio-flyer-no-music-1-1.mp3

The Future of Circus

Thinking about a career as a circus performer?

Extraordinary Bodies is committed to making circus accessible for everybody. The performing company provides professional opportunities and employment for people from diverse backgrounds including Deaf and disabled performers.

What about entering the profession if you haven’t had any circus training?

Extraordinary Bodies has brought together a panel of experts to look at how to provide more accessible career pathways and develop more opportunities for Deaf and disabled practitioners to train in circus. National Centre of Circus Arts, Circomedia and Extraordinary Bodies Young Artists are working with us to develop an action plan to influence and promote inclusivity in circus training and in youth circus.

Where can you find the existing accessible circus training opportunities?

A few youth circuses are fully integrated including Extraordinary Bodies Young Artists, National Youth Circus and Circus Eruption.

Circomedia and National Centre for Circus Arts are committed to making their FE and HE training inclusive. Contact them to discuss opportunities.

Let your local youth circus or community training space know how they could make it easier for you to work with them and find out their access policy. They will make reasonable adjustments to accommodate your needs.

Do you run circus training and want to know how to be more inclusive?

One aim of the Extraordinary Bodies panel of experts is to provide inclusivity training for circus trainers so more youth circuses have capacity and skill needed to become inclusive.

We are creating a toolkit available for download from this site and we are working to ensure that training in inclusive practice is available for unaffiliated circus teachers/trainers.

For information on teacher training contact National Centre for Circus Arts or Circus Works.

For information on best practice in inclusive training please see Doing things Differently, or contact Diverse City.

Extraordinary Bodies & The British Paraorchestra

In June 2016, The British Paraorchestra invited Extraordinary Bodies to collaborate on a one-off performance of Terry Riley’s iconic cornerstone of classical minimalism, In C.

Composed in 1964, In C consists of 53 short repeated melodies in C major. How often each melody is repeated, coloured or intensified, is completely the choice of each individual player – but each player also has a responsibility to the whole ensemble, and each performance is different to any other performance of the piece that has ever happened.

Extraordinary Bodies took cues from the musical structure. We devised a series of physical ‘gestures’ to develop and combine in a complementary style to the musical phrases. It was a fantastic opportunity to experiment with movement, sound and the senses; to share the skills of our artists with new audiences; and to work alongside a company in harmony with our vision and values.

The combined effect of Extraordinary Bodies and The British Paraorchestra playing In C was described as cathartic, uplifting and engulfing. The aural equivalent of climbing inside a giant lava lamp…

The British Paraorchestra is the world’s first professional ensemble of disabled musicians. Based in Bristol and led by pioneering innovator of classical music, Charles Hazelwood, they are ideal allies, partners and collaborators for Extraordinary Bodies.

To bring this unique performance to your area please contact us, we are always interested in new partnerships.

This performance was commissioned for Fast Forward Festival 2016 at Bristol’s Colston Hall.

Weighting

First created in 2013, Weighting is an uplifting, large scale, outdoor show that combines circus, theatre and live music to tell the story of an extraordinary family. The show celebrates risk-taking, transformation and asks when is the right time to let go?

The cast includes seven extraordinary disabled and non-disabled circus and theatre artists who take to the air on a huge transformative set. A stupendously talented five-piece band, playing an original score, accompanies the piece along with a captivating BSL interpreter and dulcet-toned audio describer. The show’s memorable finale includes a massed, integrated local community choir, singing and signing together.

Supported by Arts Council England, Weighting was redeveloped in 2015 with writer Hattie Naylor. We toured to 5 locations across the UK including a headline performance at Bristol’s Doing Things Differently event in September 2016.

The show’s haunting and memorable soundtrack, composed by Dom Coyote and Ted Barnes, is available for download along with a invitation to support Extraordinary Bodies with a suggested donation.

DOWNLOAD ORIGINAL SOUNTRACK

Alongside Weighting, we run a groundbreaking integrated and inclusive participatory programme called Sings, Leads & Plays, inviting everyone to experience, enjoy and learn first-hand about artistic integration. In 2014-16 this was funded through Diverse City’s Clore Duffield 50th Anniversary Prize Fund win.

For more information, please contact us.

Our journey of discovery in 2017

In 2017 we are travelling the country visiting communities in 10 different places across the UK and Ireland. In each place, we are sharing circus, music and storytelling skills with diverse community groups, in return for their ideas, stories and responses to the question What am I Worth?

We want to understand how people see their own value and how they would like their worth recognised in society.

By the end of the year we will begin to make a new show: What am I Worth?

Joyful, radical, bold and accessible, the performance will tackle head on our assessment of value and our fear of difference. It will celebrate the stories of people who create their own sense of worth, despite a culture that devalues them.

Performed outdoors by an exceptional cast of disabled and non-disabled circus, theatre and music artists, What am I Worth? will tour from summer 2018. The show will include live music, BSL interpretation and audio description, and will play to audiences of up to 1000 people.

Find out more about our journey, our partners and the communities that we are working with by browsing the map below.

This project is funded by Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence.

Who we are

Extraordinary Bodies is a company of artistic activators and activists, a collaboration between colleagues from Cirque Bijou and Diverse City, and a diverse and exciting array of creative minds, artists, theatre practitioners, musicians, writers and crew. Click on the people below to find out more.

About Us

Extraordinary Bodies is the UK’s leading professional integrated circus company. We create large scale, bold, radical and joyous performance. Our artistic practice increases awareness, capacity and leadership for integration of D/deaf, disabled and non-disabled artists working equally together in the arts nationally.

We make work with, for and about our communities; work that represents the diverse makeup of our society – onstage, offstage and in the audience.
We are a strong and unlikely partnership between leading showmakers Cirque Bijou and leading arts and diversity practitioners Diverse City. Our partnership breaks boundaries and our work does too.

Introduction

Hello, welcome to our Extraordinary Bodies website, I am David.
I am the member of Extraordinary Bodies.
You find some of our interesting, risky, bold, circus artistic visions, past and future events
and announcements . And if you are joining our mailing list, you will receive our newsletter.
Please click the web page to browse.