From student juggler to pioneer of contemporary circus, Douglas McPherson meets the man behind NoFit State Circus.
The miners’ strike, high unemployment and clashes between the police and New Age travellers. That was the charged political landscape against which five students set out to introduce a new form of circus to Britain, 30 years ago.
The seeds of NoFit State Circus were planted in a juggling club at Cardiff University.
“I wasn’t at the university,” recalls Tom Rack, the last of the founders still with the company, “but I was friends with a bunch of people that were. We figured out that as a juggling club, we could get the use of university minibuses to go to festivals. Then we figured out that if we started doing workshops they’d give us free tickets. We then realised that if we started doing performances, they may even pay our expenses... Keep reading on The Stage
The miners’ strike, high unemployment and clashes between the police and New Age travellers. That was the charged political landscape against which five students set out to introduce a new form of circus to Britain, 30 years ago.
The seeds of NoFit State Circus were planted in a juggling club at Cardiff University.
“I wasn’t at the university,” recalls Tom Rack, the last of the founders still with the company, “but I was friends with a bunch of people that were. We figured out that as a juggling club, we could get the use of university minibuses to go to festivals. Then we figured out that if we started doing workshops they’d give us free tickets. We then realised that if we started doing performances, they may even pay our expenses... Keep reading on The Stage