Take Care - Circus life in a swing. European Conference on Mental Health and Well-being in the Circus and Performing Arts Sector
The 2025 edition of CircusDanceFestival hosts the kick-off event of the first-ever Creative Europe project dedicated to mental health and well-being in the circus arts sector initiated by FEDEC - International network for professional circus education, Take Care. This conference explores the relationship between the individual and the collective, tackling mental health and well-being, from working conditions to health habits and queerness. The aim is to merge physical, psychological and ethical aspects and to create an intergenerational dialogue. Around About Circus participates in the two-year Creative EU trajectory supporting the communication and dissemination of knowledge. In this article, I introduce you to the Take Care Conference on Saturday, June 7 from 9:00 to 15:30 at LATIBUL, Cologne.
Finding quality of life and a work/life balance is challenging but needed to establish a healthier relationship with yourself and others. From the youngest circus artists to senior professionals, we deal daily with multiple tasks, and the pressure can be hard to handle. How can we smooth our experience and be more in tune with what we need? Is it possible to learn to respect our mental, emotional and physical needs, and educate ourselves with healthier habits and through cooperation?
After the EU project Speak Out, aimed at preventing all forms of sexism and gender-based discrimination and violence in the circus arts sector, the current Take Care, FEDEC - International network for professional circus education, addresses the mental condition of students and young professionals. Entangling the formation aspect to the working conditions in the performing arts sector, CircusDanceFestival hosts the kick-off event with two keynotes, three workshops and a final panel.
The Take Care Conference will begin at 9 am, at LATIBUL, the epicentre of the three-day CircusDanceFestival 2025 edition in Cologne. It will start with a physical warm-up session to welcome the participants, and reconnect with the body and focus attention. The CircusDanceFestival team will then take the floor to welcome the participants and explain in detail the timeline and content of activities, introducing the Awareness Protocol that has been in place for two years at the festival site, with the complicity of the German Association IFC, who actively collaborate every year to train the festival’s volunteers and team. Later on, FEDEC’s director Isabel Joly and Take Care Project Manager Sarah Weber will introduce the project’s two-year trajectory and frame the main themes from the perspective of the international circus school network.
KEYNOTE - Circus & Science: An Overview of Health Research and Monitoring in Circus Performance by Rogier van Rijn (CODARTS)
In last year’s conference Circus - a Safe(r) Space for Danger, we already met CODARTS and their studies on risk. From the physical injuries studies, we now move forward and contextualise the vital necessity of a scientific approach to emotions and needs in the professional circus schools ecosystem. For this reason, the conference opens with a scientific overview keynote by Rogier van Rijn, Circus & Science: An Overview of Health Research and Monitoring in Circus Performance. The PhD Human Movement Scientist and Associate Professor will introduce the Performing Artist Health Monitor (PAHM), an online tool developed by CODARTS for universities and companies. PAHM collects data on the physical and mental well-being of performing artists, offering real-time, personalized feedback on potential health risks. Based on PAHM insights, the keynote presents findings on the prevalence of injuries and health concerns among circus arts students.
KEYNOTE - CARE as a verb, not only as a noun: what have we been actually practising?
From a scientific overview by a researcher on training, we move to a more abstract reflection on what has been done, and what is still needed, from the perspective of young circus artists and professionals. After the previous joint research on Mentally Safe(r) Spaces and Decoloniality and Questioning Privilege as Embodied Practices, the artist and activist Amanda Homa and the independent researcher Gaia Vimercati meet again to generate an inspirational keynote impulse: CARE as a verb, not only as a noun: what have we been actually practising? From the evidence that in circus practice, care is often tied to physical risk, while less visible dangers—emotional, psychological, or systemic—are frequently overlooked, leaving individuals to navigate them alone, Amanda and Gaia address the question: Who decides how much care is needed and for whom? Merging the needs of the individual to the collective dimension, where, unfortunately, systemic oppression is rarely considered in discussions on care and mental health, despite the lasting impact of the trauma it creates. Their keynote stresses a pivotal point: without questioning how we organise care, it risks becoming an empty word, disconnected from practice. This keynote invites us to rethink care as an ongoing, collective action—one that involves situatedness, trust, disagreement, failure, accountability, and repair. Just as circus artists must assess risk to support each other physically, cultural workers must develop “social knowledge” to recognise and address structural pressures. To “take care” should start with the question: What should I know/learn to understand better what I should do?
After the two keynotes' frontal fruition inside the circus tent, the Take Care Conference comes to a more interactive section with three parallel workshops exploring practices of good nutrition, dealing with stressful conditions in the performing arts sector, and learning more about the best practice of ethical behaviours around queerness. The workshops are free, open for 20 or 30 people and under registration at this link. With the assistance of each workshop leader, the conference wants to engage with the needs of a broader audience, targeting everyone from the younger generation of circus professionals to the senior managers.
WORKSHOP - Creativity and Nutrition (Oh, my guts!) with Krisje Beaumond
Scientific research has proved that our intestine works as a second brain in our body, and its healthy function is crucial to maintaining a lucid attitude and ready reflexes while dealing with stressful conditions and performance anxiety. With the French Naturopath Krisje Beaumond, the Creativity and Nutrition (Oh, my guts!) workshop explores the intricate connections between nutrition, the microbiome - the community of microorganisms in our bodies—, and creativity. The workshop is designed for anyone looking to enhance their creativity, professionals in creative fields, and anyone interested in the fascinating intersection of health and creativity. Together we will learn how to implement healthier routines and enjoy better taking care of your nutrition supplies. We will discuss how our dietary choices influence our body's gut health and the profound impact it can have in turning on our physical and mental health. Focussing on practical strategies to include gut-friendly foods in our meals, we'll aim at fostering both well-being and creative thinking.
WORKSHOP - Stressed Out and Burning On with Luísa Saraiva
Burnout is a central topic for the people involved in the difficult dynamics in the performing arts sector, while mental and physical exhaustion is chasing our involvement and affection for our jobs. How can we preserve our vocational attitude and commitment and preserve hope while we manage different tasks under pressure? As a contemporary dancer, choreographer and coach, Luísa Saraiva developed modular formats' workshops oriented to merge the physical and mental conditions of the participants around the topic. Stressed Out and Burning On is all about tackling the mental health challenges related to chronic stress and burnout in the performing arts field, offering a supportive space to explore, understand, and manage anxiety and emotional exhaustion. We know the sector can be incredibly demanding. Constantly fluctuating work, unpredictable conditions, and the pressure to keep up financially and creatively: it is quite common to feel drained and disconnected from your goals, especially when these feelings pile up over time. The workshop will focus on building peer-to-peer support within the artistic community by facilitating a dialogue on good practices.
WORKSHOP - Queer Circus: Creating Spaces That Work with Axel Satgé
Circus and Dance International Development Manager Axel Satgé is involved in editorial projects and international touring guides. As a passionate illustrator artist, he designed the icons of the workshops for the Take Care Conference, will lead a workshop and is involved in a broader trajectory inside the Creative EU project. Queerness is an essential topic in today’s cultural landscape. While we happily celebrate venues opening their programme to new types of work, how can venues and companies better support queer artists and audiences? Queer Circus: Creating Spaces That Work is a space for open conversation, sharing real-life experiences, and identifying practical steps towards more inclusive practices. Whether you’re an artist, programmer, or producer, together, we’ll explore the challenges and opportunities that queer artists face and start shaping a practical guide to help the sector work more thoughtfully and effectively. The workshop is also a precious moment to start collecting data and the starting point for distributing an anonymous survey to collect international opinions and necessities towards the topic. A final guide dedicated to the subject will be then presented at the last conference of the Take Care project at the ON THE EDGE festival in Vien next year.
After a Lunch Break intended as a social moment of gathering in the park, the conference will switch modes again, to open up and share collective knowledge around the topic of Care, with several local and international guests.
PANEL - From individual to collective care - practices and knowledge
How does the concept of care spill over into the artistic practices of different personalities at the head of a cultural organisation? How can different relational and behavioural devices generate inclusion and increase the sense of well-being of individuals and their communities? The Take Care Conference at CircusDanceFestival will close with a final panel gathering actual good practices in the performing arts sector. The participants will tell more about what it means, individually and in a collective context, how they decline their approach to mental health and well-being in their daily own work, exchanging thoughts on what they had learned and the future challenges they are involved in. Mixing the perspective of directing, co-authoring, and coaching, an hour of conversation with local and international guests, connecting the city of Cologne’s dimension with circus and dance culture's international trajectory. I will be involved as Around About Circus for the moderation of the panel, in conversation with Nicole A’Court Stuart - Contra Productions/Circus City Festival, Bristol (UK), Heather O’Donnell - The Greenroom, Cologne (DE), Benze C Werner - choreographer and dancer, Cologne, (DE), Initiative Feministischer Circus - Cultural Association, (DE).
Take Care Conference Programme Timetable
After the roundtable, the ending time is dedicated to opening up and exchanging what we’ve learnt: fixing concepts, sharing reflections, and back-to-back audience questions and answers. The conference wants to end with an open dialogue. What we hope by contributing to this event is that it will generate new creative impulses and stimulate conversations on the issues at hand, opening up new perspectives for the future in the hope that from the invisible, care will become a necessary principle always in the spotlight. Any feedback would be appreciated, drop us a line at info@aroundaboutcircus.com after the event!