Circus
Dr Dea is Director of Circus250, founded to celebrate 250 years of circus in 2018. Since then, Circus250 has developed into a circus production company, creating and touring ‘circus with purpose’ – astonishing, provocative, powerful stories told through physical performance. Dea is a former elephant girl in a traditional circus.
Discover more about Circus250’s shows below:
“I adore circus.
Before I was anything else, I was a circus performer.
So I haven’t run away to the circus – I’ve run back to it.“
The Secret Life of a Circus Caravan
The Secret Life of a Circus Caravan combines storytelling and circus. It’s an intimate, immersive experience in a working circus artiste’s 11ft 1980s caravan, Dea’s former home.
Read more about The Secret Life of a Circus Caravan touring show
Read about Dea and her caravan in a major feature in Irish Times Magazine: Sawdust and sequins: Why I ran away to join the circus at 60
“The caravan reflects notions of home not as a geographical place on the map, but a place of community, wherever that community lands. It also exudes outsider-dom and difference.”
Dea Birkett
Dea’s Other Circus Journeys Include
Who Killed the Circus?
First broadcast on the BBC World Service on 21 December, 2017
An hour-long authored documentary for BBC World Service on the last Ringling, Barnum and Bailey show
Women and the Circus
First broadcast on BBC Woman’s Hour on 2 April, 2018
250 years after the circus was first founded in Britain, how important is the art form today? And how has the role of women in the circus changed over the years?
Brace Brace – behind the scenes
Circus250 is thrilled to be working with aerialist Freya Averley on Brace Brace, a solo show about Freya’s experience of wearing a spinal brace as a teenager. Dea is Creative Producer.
Brace Brace was awarded an Artist Residency at Flying Fantastic.
Women In Circus short film
Dea’s Thoughts on Circus
The curious history of Britain’s last circus building
First published in The Spectator on 1 August, 2020
Guess which theatre is the first to open to the paying public post-Covid? Not Lloyd Webber’s London Palladium, where small audiences have been invited on trials, nor any of the other West End giants. This weekend the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome — Britain’s last stand-alone circus building — is welcoming audiences to its ringside seats for the first time since March. […]
Circus must bridge divide between traditional and new
First published in The Stage on 27 April, 2017
[…] It’s not really the shows that are so different. Contemporary circus generally places more emphasis on narrative and artistic direction, but plenty of artistry is shared. Cirque du Soleil draws heaving on performers from the traditional community with their high level of technical skill. The contemporary Lost in Translation circus recently invited artists from Moscow State Circus to a skills-sharing workshop. And when asked which is my favourite traditional British circus company, I might answer NoFitState. […]
Circus entertainment goes high-tech
First published in E&T Magazine on 19 April, 2018
The handstand contortionist bends into shapes you wouldn’t dream existed; the Cyr wheel duo spin and spin until your head hurts; you worry the crossbow stunt artists might just make that final, fatal mistake.
But you’re safe in your sitting room watching the world’s first circus made specifically for 360 VR audiences. […]
Why I’m sick of politics being described as a circus
First published in The Spectator on 31 August 2019
Jon Sopel has a new book out this month – A Year at the Circus. But the BBC’s North America editor hasn’t spent the last 12 months taming roaring lions in a sawdust ring or swinging on a trapeze wearing a skin-tight sparkly leotard. He’s been covering Trump’s presidency. And the ‘circus’ he refers to is the chaos and infighting inside the Oval Office. The book’s jacket shows a picture of the White House with a red and white striped circus tent perched over the stucco roof railings. ‘At the heart of Washington, there is a circus. It’s raucous, noisy and full of clowns,’ Sopel declares. […]
Interviews About Dea’s Circus Days
Mulranny Musings Podcast – Dea’s thoughts on circus and creativity
Dea Birkett talks about her life as a ringmaster and how she brings innovative performances to her island.
Sharing Things Podcast – Dea’s chosen object: ringmaster’s jacket
Dea Birkett and Alex Lewthwaite talk about running back to the circus, performing and seeing the potential in everything.
First published as a University of Edinburgh Sharing Things Podcast on 6 May, 2021. Click here for the full transcript.
The Circus was born in Britain 250 years ago – and I’ll never regret running away to join it
First published in The Telegraph on 26 December, 2017
We watch in awe. We gasp, we cry, we cheer, we laugh, we go “Wow!” We close our eyes. We force them open again and glimpse the trapeze artist reaching out one powdery hand for the rolling bar. There’s a moment we think she won’t jump, that she’ll stay on the small platform two storeys above us, that the trapeze will swing back empty high across the ring, back and forward with no one riding it. But the girl in the sequins and tights reaches forward, grips the bar with both hands… and soars […]
The Circus: 250 years later with Dr. Dea Birkett
First published in Student Comment and News on 15 October, 2018
When we think of the circus, our mind would often turn to shows at Blackpool on a rainy Sunday afternoon, or films like The Greatest Showman which turn circus acts into Hollywood blockbuster films. It’s now been 250 years since the invention of the modern-day circus when in 1768, Philip Astley began his career as an entertainment impresario by opening his riding school and putting on displays of trick riding. Since then the circus has surrounded itself with myths and rumours, and it’s now a term that comes loaded with preconceptions and old-fashioned ideas. […]
The joy of circus
First published on the University of Edinburgh website on 31 May, 2018
What made you want to become a circus performer and how did you find the experience?
As a child, I remember the circus pitching up at the end of our street. Like many, it was the first and for many years the only live performance I saw. That image of the wondrous travelling players, who transformed the shabby park each year, lingered.
After I had my first child, I knew, if I were ever going to be part of that travelling show, I had to do it then before too late. So, aged 30, I ran away to the circus. I adored the international community – Moroccan tumblers, Chinese acrobats, Ukrainian hula hoop girl … and the way in which we trusted each other every day with our lives. […]