Creative differences The conditions that enable some artists to be productive will be best predicted by the artists themselves, but, given that resources are scarce and competitive, many will be driven to brush aside any doubts and apply to whatever schemes they can find. Therefore, directors of creation centres and residency labs also have a responsibility to host artists who fit with and desire what they can offer. Rather than offering a standardised creation experience, it is Rather than offering a standaralso important for these places dised creation experience, it is to develop strongly defined also important for these places characters and settings that to develop strongly defined chapresent artists with a range of racters and settings that present choices. artists with a range of choices – urban or rural, social or isolated, circus-specific or cross-artform. There is also a need for the residency sites across the sector to establish facilities which, taken together, can meet the wide technical requirements of the different circus disciplines: requirements that can never be met by a single institution can be fulfilled by the aggregate
of organisations working across the field. Recognising the high variance from one project to the next, some residency sites place the emphasis on flexible or modular support programmes. The National Centre for Circus Arts’ Lab:time programme (London) launched with four strands: Space:time (use of the school's Creation Studio), Team:time (funds to bring new collaborators into a research process), Tech:time (funds for the purchase or development of new equipment), and High:time (funds to pay for services of a technician to support R&D). Applicants were able to apply for a single strand or to a combination – and even to all four.
Crossing paths On an individual level, creativity emerges from complex networks of past and present experience. In a sense, it is about crossing paths. Artists are stimulated in their creative work not only by physical environments, but rather by a mixture of environments, people, conversations, resources, materials, and basic human needs (food, sleep, company, etc.). Human interaction is another key factor, and artists are often stimulated when they are around practitioners from different fields or simply with life in the everyday world. Projects and residencies that invite artists to engage with a specific community or local context are one direct way of creating these connections. Residen-
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cies that invite artists to create work in response to a particular landscape/environment are common in the visual arts, but less so in circus – perhaps because of technical needs and the relatively long creation periods for productions. However, some On an individual level, initiatives – like Cirkus Xanti's creativity emerges from Circus Village, a travelling festival complex networks of past and and residency centre in Norway – present experience. In a sense, it is about crossing paths. have found that the model of the tent is an excellent laboratory for interaction with local communities, and many others have found that the nature of circus, as an intrinsically social form, makes it well suited to creation projects that draw in people from the surrounding area.