Doing the best out of limited (elastic) time resource

In a network, meeting all together is something exceptional. Within the Zirkus ON* alliance we meet for two to three events a year maximum. This gives a sense of reunion and celebration to each event.

The agenda of each event has to be relevant for the collective and to give a good reason to join while knowing that the best networking events are the ones with plenty of time for informal talks. For Zirkus ON, it is essential to give a lot of spaces for informal talks to let the magic of encounters happen and to build long-lasting relationships. This is the core principle of the opening presentations organised yearly, right after the jury selection, to let the selected artists introduce their project and get to know personally our alliance members at an early stage of their creation process.

In a network, the time given to engage in a conversation with each other, to work together on a specific topic and/or to raise engagement on-site is very short. As Zirkus ON aims to further develop the creation programme collectively with its alliance members, the coordination team prepares proposals that are discussed during our annual general meeting and voted on by the alliance members. It is quite challenging to share the latest information, to further develop an element of the programme together and to make everyone agree and satisfied within this short time. If necessary, we build up temporary working groups to keep on working on the suggestions for one or two online meetings with a small group of members. Once back at home, the challenge is to find the right frequency for the communication to keep the alliance members on the page. Once a year, the Zirkus ON team sends a feedback questionnaire to the alliance members to improve the way we are working together and to get a big picture of the opinions about the directions taken by the programme.

The more the partners identify with the alliance, the more elastic the time resource is!

The nature of the links in a network: elastic relationships

The Zirkus ON programme is currently supported by seventeen alliance partners. There were six partners for the first edition of the programme in 2019.

The network has emerged from the idea to bundle available resources to support circus arts projects in a German performing arts landscape with no funding dedicated to circus arts. At that time, there were virtually no residency opportunities for circus projects in Germany. The programme was run by a team composed of the artists Kolja Huneck and Andree Wenzel on a voluntary basis. Some partners were offering their space for residencies, others were offering their stage for presentations, some artists and BUZZ members engaged as mentors. Mostly no money was circulating in the network. All resources available were used and each contribution had a huge impact.

Since the beginning, it is the commitment of all our alliance partners that makes Zirkus ON strong. Our partners are residency spaces, festivals, theatre, a federal association and a magazine. They have different profiles, different types of resources and realities we need to consider in the dynamic of the network. As a network coordinator, the most important is to know which knowledge, topics of expertise, added-value and motivation each member brings in in your network to be able to activate them when needed.

The alliance members are unified by the same will to make circus arts more visible, to improve the quality of circus created in Germany and to improve working conditions for circus creators. Zirkus ON wishes to build long lasting personal relationships and a community that feels like a big family. The human being behind the institution is much more important for us than the institution itself. Despite the openness and warmth of the alliance, these aspirations make the integration of new members quite challenging and a long-lasting process.

The alliance grew quite fast in the first five years of the creation programme and the question about the right size keeps accompanying us. The bigger the network is, the more difficult it is to be in contact with each member on a regular basis and to mobilise the existing resources. You need to accept that relationships in a network are like an elastic band: they wax and wane over time. For Zirkus ON, it depends on the projects we are currently implementing with which partners and of the need of the selected artists for their creation.

In the last six years, not only the Zirkus ON alliance has grown, but also the residences landscape and the funding opportunities for circus arts in Germany. Since 2022, Zirkus ON has been funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the German Federal Association of the Independent Performing Arts’ programme “Verbindungen fördern”. With the professionalisation and structuration of the organisation, the major needs have moved from “everything available which might help” to collective intelligence, knowledge sharing and creation spaces. It leads to relationships more distended but not necessarily less intense.

That’s all the challenges of a network: finding the right way to distend or tighten the elastic band as required! A learning by playing process.

*Zirkus ON is the creation alliance for circus arts in and from Germany.

Photo: Kolja Huneck

Alice Greenhill

Alice Greenhill is the managing director of Zirkus ON. Passionate about circus arts, she did a career change in 2019 from the business to the circus art sector, joining the federal association of contemporary circus in Germany called “BUZZ”.