Sadiq Ali and Vee Smith: The Kelpie and the Phoenix | BRAW Bursary

We are Sadiq Ali and Vee Smith, and we met on the degree at the National Centre for Circus Arts. We were delighted with this bursary from Shaper/Caper and used it to help us support and idea we have had for some time - making a queer circus show for children and young people.

 

Sadiq and I both grew up as kids who felt like outsiders. Kids who felt that we didn’t fit the mould of the ‘happily ever after’ straight white married couple with 2.5 children. Even as children we felt that life wasn’t for us, and that made us feel alienated. Fortunately today as adults we are (mostly!) free to live our best Queer Extra lives, the thought of making a show for younger audiences that deals with themes of queerness felt really frightening! Would people target us online? Would we get hounded by the media? Would we inadvertently break some sort fo law we didn’t know existed? Would people call us monsters? We didn't know the answer to any of these questions when we started this process of research, but we did know that we wanted to figure out how to make a show that would make kids that didn’t quite fit in feel better about themselves. During our research we found this quote that really resonated with us, and about why we were doing what we were doing:

A tweet that reads: "We need diverse representation not only so every kid can see themselves as the hero of the story, but so that every kid can understand that other kinds of kids are also the heroes of the story.

During our R&D period we played, we laughed, we experimented with characters on Chinese Pole and Aerial Rope, we played party games and shared stories about our own childhoods. We commissioned some initial sketches from a costume designer Cleo McCabe (below) to help express some of our potential characters, we came up with a potential name for the show that reflects the characters we came up with. The Kelpie - A girl who feels like she is more than just the images of womanhood that surround her, and the Phoenix - A boy who can fly high and be beautifully free.

 

We had a fantastic time on this initial R&D and we are now hoping to take this project further - Thank you Shaper Caper!

A sketch of Sadiq wearing a white polo shirt tucked into grey belted trousers and white trainers. His dragging a length of red fabric behind him in his left hand.
A sketch of Vee wearing a light green dress with a knee length circle skirt and double breasted buttons. It has a square, sailor style collar and ruffles on the skirt hem. They are wearing a light green bow in their red hair and red ballet flats.
Thomas SmallComment