Circus City Returns to Bristol for 2025
City to welcome local, national and international artistes for October festival
Bristol is a big player for being a national lead on circus arts. It’s the home of Circomedia, a school for contemporary circus and physical theatre. It’s also the home of Circus City, a biennial festival that welcomes national and international acts to Bristol.
Circus City is back this year, with a programme of events based on Bodies of Care.
“For 2025, Circus City is taking Bodies of Care as its over-arching theme, inviting audiences to explore circus work that embeds practices of care into the way it is made and performed, and what it says,” Festival director Nicole A’Court Stuart explains.
“From hand-to-hand and bike acrobatics, hair hanging and contortion, to clowning, aerial silks, street dance on a giant treadmill, and some of the most complex and ingenious juggling in the world – we’ll look at caring as a strategy for survival, for resistance, for joy and as the basis for brilliant and inclusive circus work.”
The event will be taking place at venues across the city. This includes Circomedia, Arnolfini, Loco Klub, Bristol Beacon, Trinity Centre, Malcolm X Centre, Heart BS13 and 1532 Performing Arts Centre.
The live performances combine circus skills with additional disciplines such as music, theatre, dance and spoken word.
As well as homegrown and national acts, there will be international artistes from countries including Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, Lithuania, Germany and the USA.
Audiences can book for individual events, though for the first time this year, the festival has introduced a festival pass.
Circus City will be running from 09 – 30 October 2025
For more information about Bristol Circus City or to book, visit: https://www.bristolcircuscity.com/
Featured Image: Rollercoaster – Fahimeh Hekmatandish
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