Mimbre Circus Central this Saturday 20th September!

10 Sep Mimbre Circus Central this Saturday 20th September!

We’re very excited to announce the schedule for our 2nd annual Mimbre Circus Central festival in Hackney Central.

The event is on the pedestrianised portion at the north end of Mare Street, very close to Hackney Central Station.

The programme this year is so much fun. The festival will open with the lovely Mrs H and her Sing Along Band, doing a rousing set of songs particularly to get the little ones moving. The line up for Mrs H includes the fantastic Ted Barnes who composed the music for our shows Until Now and Bench. That Juggler (Ian Marchant) is an amazing street performer who will be compeering the circus cabaret as well as treating us to his own show in Zone 2. If you wander up to zone 3 to learn some Circus Skills you may recognise the lovely Martha Harrison, who has toured with Mimbre for many years in Until Now and Falling Up, she’ll be taking great care of you all whilst you learn to spin plates or even walk a tight-rope! If you fancy something a bit calmer you can also make your own juggling balls in Zone 3, and there will be plenty of people around to help you learn how to use them.

If you joined us last year you will probably remember the amazing Folk Dance Remixed and their Street Dance maypole. Last year they were running workshops but this year, as well as giving you another chance to get involved yourself, they’ll also be performing their show, Hip Hop House. Later in the afternoon we expect to see everyone round the maypole for the Ceildh, and we’ll be drawing the raffle prizes in between dances.

Having listened to your feedback last year, this year we will have some food on site for you to tuck into. Up in Zone 5 there will be beautiful smoked beef and grilled red pepper sandwiches by Franchini and Friends, and for afters you can treat yourself to ice cream from the Jiggery Pokery  ice cream bicycle. Both companies are kindly sponsoring the event, so everything you buy from them, and every raffle ticket you buy too, will help to support our amazing participation programme that offers healthy, fun activities for disadvantaged young people in our borough.

Whilst you enjoy your food in the Zone 5 café area keep your eyes open, throughout the afternoon there will be pop-up performances including all sorts of amazing circus skills as well as some other surprises. If you want to get involved there will be an open free-style street dance circle at 3:30pm.

Finally if you have a spare 5 minutes – although I can’t imagine where you’ll find the time! – there’s a play area in Zone 4, including play equipment kindly donated for the day from Gilette Square, and giant board games for the whole family, including enormous Kerplunk (which I’m a bit too excited about playing myself!).

There will be information points throughout the site, and plenty of volunteers and stewards around all day, so if you need anything or have any questions do grab one of the Mimbre team.

We can’t wait to see you there.

P.S. If you fancy volunteering a bit of time to make everyone’s afternoon even more fun, or even being a paid steward for the day, do get in touch as we are still recruiting.