Outreach — Circus Nexus

Be strong
and belong

For 25 years, our outreach programs have brought circus to the streets, visiting marginalised communities from Shepparton to Istanbul and all over Melbourne Naarm.

Our Outreach projects use creative, physical activity to empower young people and build stronger communities. Every project champions diversity, accessibility, social connection and healthy living amongst our participants and through them, within local communities. Our activities are focused on three target groups: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Young People with Disability and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities.

Current Projects:

Mob is Everything

This project is proudly supported by VicHealth, in partnership with Darebin Council, and designed for our young friends at Koorie Youth Circus and our Deadly Elders.

Stage One is the delivery of a creative arts program aimed at supporting improved health and wellbeing outcomes for this cohort. Stage Two will present a circus arts program which encourages regular physical activity, improves mental wellbeing and healthy eating, and includes connection to culture as foundation for good health.
Our creative partners at Na Djinang Circus are known for being a First Nations led company and the style of their work imbues traditional and contemporary styles of performance with shapes, images, and styles of indigenous performance, rituals, and iconography. Na Djinang are working with our participants to show them ways of creative storytelling through circus, and to expose them to the possibilities of sharing culture through the performing arts.

Access All Areas – All Abilities

Proudly sponsored by the Department of Social Security, this project offers supported, free and low-cost twice-weekly MY Circus classes at our awesome professional circus studio in Preston for young people with disability (PWD) and their families and friends.

These workshops will be facilitated by a team of two circus coaches, guided by an Occupational Therapist and will use specialist equipment and practices which are designed to give our young friends living with disability a fun and challenging experience of being in the circus. Through increasing access to and participation in circus activity, these activities will support young people with disability to be healthier and happier and shift attitudes toward a shared knowledge that circus is accessible for every body, regardless of age, shape or ability.

All Abilities – Outreach

Proudly sponsored by VicHealth, this project offers free MY Circus workshops through partnerships with support organisations and schools for young people with disability (PWD), designed by a team of circus trainers and Occupational therapists.

Through increasing access to and participation in circus activity, these activities will support young people with disability to be healthier and happier and shift attitudes toward a shared knowledge that circus is accessible for every body, regardless of age, shape or ability.

One Community Circus – Circus Club

Proudly supported by VicHealth, Circus Club is a series of twice-weekly afterschool workshops teaching Circus skills to benefit the mental and physical health and wellbeing of CALD young people (12-25y/o) who reside in and around the North Melbourne, Flemington, Footscray, Ascot Vale and Carlton housing estates.

Incorporating dance, physical theatre, social interaction and healthy food, families can drop in and have a healthy, fun and social time on Wednesday afternoons and Friday evenings. This project includes school and community workshops and promotes social cohesion and healthy living. This project was developed with the communities that live in and around the North Melbourne Housing estates, in a pilot program sponsored by the City Of Melbourne, which ran whenever it could in 2020-2022, through the harsh lockdowns that seriously impacted the residents there.

Pages Fly

Running for over 10 years, and currently proudly sponsored by Hume City Council and RE Ross Trust, ‘Pages Fly’ is an early learning and literacy project combining stories, art and social circus for newly arrived and CALD resident families in Hume.

It aims to create a safe and supportive community environment in which families can grow, learn, interact and build confidence and new connections. Over approximately 10-13 sessions artists will work with preschoolers and their carers to retell a traditional story of their choice and create a storybook that will be professionally printed and shared with community members at a group show and tell.