In June 2020 Upswing’s Artistic Director Vicki Amedume delivered a keynote speech at Circostrada’s Lab #5 about developing diverse and inclusive leadership practice.

Entitled ‘How can we genuinely embrace diversity and inclusion in circus and street arts?’, it is available to watch and listen here and you can access the long read here.

There follows a short extract from that keynote speech:

‘We are connecting today in a way we would never have imagined possible six months ago. This demonstrates how quickly as human beings we can adapt to new normals, and new ways of working if we see them as an absolute priority.

Covid-19 has been catastrophic in so many, many ways but as we move through this crisis we have the opportunity to imagine and model things that may have seemed out of reach if it were business as usual.

In these times, we also are unable to escape the divisions and the inequalities in our societies. We are in a time where the experiences of people, who have been historically marginalised are able to be made very public. Our national and international consciences are alive to:

• The Black Lives Matter movement

• The disproportionate effect of Covid on Black and Brown communities

• The rise in Covid-related hate crimes against the East Asian community

• The worry of those disabled people who are shielding of being left behind as we ‘renew normal’

Previously hidden experiences are now visible and inescapable, and we have to consider how we may influence them for the better as citizens, as artists, as organisations and as networks.

I began working in circus and outdoor arts as a performer. I went on from there to work as an Associate Director with Greenwich + Docklands International Festival. These days, I function as a circus director, a producer, an educator, and Artistic Director of Upswing - a contemporary circus company that tells new stories in extraordinary ways.

The forming of Upswing was driven by two desires:

• The desire for self-definition and;

• The desire to make work that is relevant and exciting to people who do not feel represented by the dominant aesthetics in circus.

Our work is always lead by and created with professional artists but we tend to involve participation in our creation processes, working with our future audiences to help us make more compelling and relevant work.

I’m saying this because I guess, like many artists from traditionally marginalised identities, I found the existing cultural spaces were not working for me, the only option was to create my own space and producing structure. A space where I could be authentic in how my identity connected with my artistic practice.

Before I proceed, I want to acknowledge that diversity encompasses gender, sexuality, a multitude of disabilities and neuro-diversity, class, as well as ethnicity.

For this keynote, I have drawn on my lived experience so the focus may lean primarily to diversity in terms of race/ethnicity. It’s important to highlight that I cannot speak for every marginalised experience. I want to share with you three thoughts about addressing inclusion, that from my experience are often missed. They are not a checklist, but I hope they will offer you new ways to reflect on what you will do next.

From the first moment I entered the circus industry, I was implicitly and explicitly shown what a talented artist looked like, what I should aspire to emulate. It did not look like me.

Later in my career I find myself sitting around many decision making tables. “We are not here to promote diversity – we’re here to promote excellent art” This is a quote from a conversation I was involved in - a panel of decision makers were asked to articulate their priorities about awarding residency support.

Are the two things mutually exclusive? It is important within our industry that we learn to investigate our culture - and here I am defining culture as the system of behaviours, both learned and inherited.

• How do our cultural experiences, values, education, political beliefs, working approaches, to name a few help us define what is acceptable? And what is familiar?

• How does this influence how we define and identify concepts like ‘talent’ and ‘merit’

• It is necessary to bring into the light and interrogate how these ideas are shaped.

If we would like to believe that our systems are based on meritocracy, that the best talent will win through, we cannot be satisfied with an unexamined approach on how this thinking is formed.

What are we telling the world (implicitly and explicitly) about who and what is welcome and valued in our spaces?

Therefore, my first principle would be:

Create spaces for conversations about values, taste, talent and merit

Engage in these conversations with unfamiliar people, people who don’t share the same ideas and cultural references as you, and see these voices as critical friends. It may uncomfortable but it may also reveal pathways to making a sustained impact on the diversity of our community.

I want to be clear, this is not about asking ourselves to compromise our personal values. Instead it is a chance to think about what we elevate and what we dismiss; and to consider why we think that way and what could happen if we opened ourselves to think differently.’ Continue reading….