Schedule of the 1st European Circus History Conference

The Early Evolution of European Circus and its Disciplines, c1760s – 1860s

London, Friday 28 Feb. – Sunday 2 Mar. 2025

Ticket purchase details are below the Schedule. Please email any queries to info@circusconference.org .

Philip Astley opened his riding school in Waterloo in 1768, shortly afterwards moving to the foot of Westminster Bridge, the site of his Amphitheatre. This volunteer-organised European Circus History Conference, hopefully the first of a biennial series held around Europe, focuses on developments in circus and its disciplines from around 1760 to the 1860s. Appropriately for a European event, the conference concerns circuses and performers active within any part of Europe, and also those who travelled into and from Europe. 

Friday 28 February 2025, 10am – 6pm: Out and about in London and getting to know your fellow conference attendees.

• 10.00 – 10.30 Cinema Museum opens – tea and coffee, and bookstall
• 10.30 – 10.50 Introduction & The Mayor of Lambeth opens the Conference
• 10.50 – 11.10 ‘My wife to conclude performs the rest’ – Patty Astley, the first lady of circus – Prof. Vanessa Toulmin, Professor and Director of City Culture and Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield, founder of the National Fairground and Circus Archive at the University of Sheffield, Chair of the Morecambe Winter Gardens Preservation Trust. 
• 11.10 – 11.30 Just after the beginning: circus activity in Great Britain at the end of the eighteenth century – Dr Kim Baston, Associate Senior Lecturer (Theatre) at La Trobe University, Melbourne who for many years taught circus history and culture at NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts), Melbourne. Most recently, she has co-edited the essay collection Researching Popular Entertainment (2025, Routledge). 
• 11.30 – 11.50 Q&A
• 11.50 – 12.00 Short Break
• 12.00 – 12.20 The first English horsemen in Italy – Dr Antonio Giarola, President of the National Association for the Development of Circus Arts (ANSAC) and of the Circus Arts Documentation Educational Center (CEDAC) in Verona. Italian poet, circus and theater director and circus historian, he also is the artistic director of The International Salieri Circus Festival.
• 12.20 – 12.40
• 12.40 – 13.00 Q&A
• 13.00 – 14.30 Lunch (1½ hours)
• Panel: Mobilities of Early Circus in the Habsburg Empire
• 14.30 – 14.50 Itinerant Female Performers and Menageries in Early Nineteenth-Century Budapest – Prof. Kornélia Deres,  Associate Professor at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Her current research project focuses on 19th century performative knowledge transfer in Central and Eastern Europe. She is author of two books and co-editor of five academic collections. She is also a poet and writer, having published four volumes.
• 14.50 – 15.10 Mazeppa’s Transformations While Crossing Borders between the 1830s and the 1850s – Prof. Katalin Teller, Associate Professor at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Co-curator of an exhibition on early show business in Pest-Buda (KiscellMuseum 2019-2022). Her second monograph, on the evolution of circus pantomimes with a historical theme, is forthcoming in Hungarian and German.
• 15.10 – 15.30 On the Tracks of Itinerant Showpeople in the (Southern) Austrian Monarchy – Veronika Barnaš, an independent artist and curator studying for her PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Art and Design Linz, researching itinerant showpeople, as well as work, entertainment, and technology (history) at temporary fairs.
• 15.30 – 15.50 Q&A
• 15.50 – 16.05 Tea break
• 16.05 – 16.25 The foundation years of circus in Australia, 1847-1856 – Dr Mark St Leon, Australia’s pre-eminent circus historian, author of ‘Circus: The Australian Story’ (Melbourne Books, 2011) and a direct descendant of Australia’s earliest family of entertainers. 
• 16.25 – 16.45 “These Roaming Ministers of Pleasure” Euro-American circuses Touring in Asia, India and China 1859-1866 – Margaret Kirby is completing her PhD on this subject at Latrobe University in Melbourne. She has a family history in circus entrepreneurs, is a playwright, and performed and taught with Circus Oz and other companies.
• 16.45 – 17.05 Q&A

Sunday 2nd March, 10 – 5, at The Cinema Museum:

• 10.00 – 10.30 Cinema Museum open – tea and coffee, and bookstall
• PANEL: Circus to America
• 10.30 – 10.50 Ricketts’ Journey to America, The transformation of English circuses into American Big Tops – Devin Jernigan, PhD student in Architectural History & Theory at Yale University researching The Architecture of the American Traveling Circus at the turn of the 20th-Century
• 10.50 – 11.00 European Circus and the San Francisco Gold Rush – Dr Doyle Ott, teacher at Sonoma State University and a healthcare clown with Medical Clown Project with a background in performing and directing circus alongside publishing circus research.
• 11.00 – 11.20 Staging Race in Early Transatlantic Circus – Prof. Leith Davis, professor in the Department of English and Director of the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and Principal Investigator “Early Circus” Digital Humanities project
• 11.20 – 11.40 Q&A 
• 11.40 – 11.50 Comfort break
• 11.50 – 12.10 Achuen Amoy and the Chinese Magicians – Prof. Mary Chapman, Professor of English, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada,  with a book in progress on Amoy; Finding the Chinese Magicians – Eelyn Lee, award winning artist and filmmaker of Hong Kong-English heritage who has shown work at Barbican, Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Palais de Tokyo, and at international film festivals
• 12.10 – 12.30 Opulence and Ostentation; the age of the nineteenth century UK circus building – Dr Steve Ward, specialising in the cultural and social history of the circus and author of ‘By Royal Command, Barnum in Europe’ (MVP 2025) and eight other circus books.
• 12.30 – 12.50 Q&A; discussion
• 12.50 – 14.20 Lunch (1½ hours)
• Panel: Northern Europe
• 14.20 – 14.40 The Development of the Circus through the Years 1799-1860 in Denmark – Mikkel Knudsen MA, Director of the Circus Museum in Hvidovre (Copenhagen)
• 14.40 – 15.00 The Role of Female Performers and Directors in the Early Stages of Circus in the Grand Duchy of Finland 1830s–1840s – Pauliina Räsänen, PhD candidate, University of Turku, Culture History; Graduate of National Circus School of Montreal and former trapeze artiste with Cirque du Soleil.
• 15.00 – 15.20 Q&A
• 15.20 – 15.35 Tea break
• 15.35 – 15.55  Sarah L’Africaine, the equestrienne who took Paris by storm  – Susanna Forrest, independent researcher, author of The Age of the Horse: an equine journey through human history (Atlantic Books, 2016), currently working on a book about European circus equestriennes of the nineteenth century, Amazons of Paris.
• 15.55 – 16.20  The Gymnasium and the Evolution of Trapeze and related Aerial Disciplines in Circus, 1760s-1860s – Steve Gossard, author of ‘A reckless era of aerial performance : the evolution of trapeze’ (1994) and former curator of circus collections at Illinois State University’s Milner Library & Charlie Holland, former Programme Director at The Circus Space (now National Centre for Circus Arts) and author of Acrobats & Aerialists in Circus, Music Hall and Beyond, 1850s-1900s (MVP, forthcoming 2025)
• 16.20 – 16.40 Q&A
• 16.40- 17.00 Feedback and expressions of interest in hosting a future conference.

Tickets

Tickets for the whole event cost £55 (or £75 if you are able to support the conference with a donation to Astley poster restoration at Lambeth Archives), and can be bought here (The ticket site at NCCA requires registration as it is normally for circus classes so please disregard medical conditions etc. unless pertinent to a conference; also we will have a list of attenders so you do not need to collect tickets from the NCCA).

Please note that you will need to pay for local bus travel between events on Friday, that lunch is not included, that only the first 40 to book will receive a ticket to see Audacious Mr. Astley due to space constraints, and that the conference hall is on the first floor, up 20 steps (two flights of ten). Tickets are non-refundable though if the conference sells out we shall try to arrange a resale.

Useful Information

Travelodge | London Central Elephant and Castle hotel – London Central Elephant and Castle hotels is an inexpensive hotel from a major chain that is within walking distance of The Cinema Museum and has excellent public transport connections.

Circus to see in London during the Conference (not part of our programme): Corteo, Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall; Footprint in the Snow by Laura Moy at Jackson’s Lane

The volunteer-organised and not-for-profit conference is supported by the Circus Friends Association of Great Britain, National Centre for Circus Arts, National Fairground and Circus Archive, Lambeth Archives, and by its venue, the Cinema Museum.

The 2025 Conference committee:

Charlie Holland (UK), Initiator of the European Circus History Conference. A former professional juggler who was instrumental in the development of The Circus Space, latterly National Centre for Circus Arts, as its Programme Director and Deputy Chief Executive. His books include ‘Strange Feats and Clever Turns’ on speciality acts in the 19th century. He is the Secretary of the British Music Hall Society and initiated and co-organised their first conference in 2023 and subsequent ones.

Pauliina Räsänen (Finland), a circus and magic artist and cultural historian (MA) from Finland is a graduate of the renowned National Circus School of Montreal. Her performance background includes touring with Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria as a solo trapeze artist for six years. She is currently pursuing her PhD  in Cultural History at the University of Turku, researching the forgotten history of women in circus and magic, and is CEO of ArtTeatro Ltd, a Finland based circus and magic arts production company

Erik Åberg (Sweden), an artist based in Stockholm who makes objects and performances, and has appeared in most European countries, Japan, Canada and the USA. He is.a PhD student in performative and media based practices at Stockholm University of the Arts where his research concerns circus, juggling, sculpture, history, archive and philosophy. An accomplished circus historian, Erik is the world’s foremost expert on the juggler Paul Cinquevalli, the subject of his newly published book ‘Cleverer than God’.

Harm van der Laan (The Netherlands), an artist and co-artistic director of both Tall Tales Company and the Tall Tales Studio, which has grown to become the main space for training and ongoing education of the professional circus community in The Netherlands. Harm teaches circus history at Codarts Rotterdam and  is co-author of the book ‘Turning the cube: Perspectives on codes through juggling and visual arts’.

Raffaele de Ritis (Italy), writer and director, active in the USA and Europe, taking a modern theatrical  approach to ancient spectacular traditions: circus, magic, cabaret. He wrote and directed for the world’s leading companies in the performing arts industry: Disney, Cirque du Soleil, Dragone, Ringling bros., Big Apple Circus, and Europe’s oldest theatres. His education crossed masters such as Federico Fellini and Dario Fo, art academies, century-old circus dynasties and the underworld of European variety. As a recognized historian in  performing arts, he has authored seminal books and  papers in seven languages, and teaches and lectures worldwide. Raffaele is custodian of an extensive private collection, and sits in the Performing Arts Council of Italy’s Ministry of Culture.