From the rave scene to the big top

By Dan Bell
BBC News, London

Artwork by Charlie Edwards on a Bassline Circus truck

After 10 years putting on underground raves across Europe, the crew of Bassline Circus are pitching their big top in the mainstream.

The collective of ravers and circus performers will bring their blend of street culture, circus skills and dance music to the Stokefest festival, north London for the next week.

The audience of mums and dads with pushchairs will be a far cry from the ranks of riot police Bassline are used to.

The circus is the latest chapter in a saga that started with the huge outdoor raves of the 1980s and 1990s.

When police pressure forced sound systems [rave organisers] -- with names like Spiral Tribe, Desert Storm and Total Resistance -- to leave the country for Europe, members of the Bassline crew went with them and they have been on the road ever since.

But after a decade dragging decks and speakers literally from London to Timbuktu, they needed a new direction, and a new challenge.

"[Rave is] very much the roots of everything we do," says Kath Veitch, 31, a youth outreach worker with the circus.

But, she adds, "It's kind of had its heyday I guess."

Bassline Circus' gymnasts are break dancers

So at the end of 2004 Bassline Circus did the unthinkable and went "legit", they registered as an independent company.

"It was about being able to take it to places, not limiting ourselves to the underground," says Robin Collings, 26, a production manager with the circus.

"We're really interested in taking what we've got to the outside world."

And what they have got is very different from the average circus.

Their ring master is a rapper, the acrobats are break dancers, the clowns are self-styled "chavs" (they wear Burberry and what is described as "loads of Dalston bling"), and the circus anthem is a drum and bass re-mix.

I can just paint, I don't have to look over my shoulder, worry about running Charlie Edwards Circus graffiti artist

But Bassline is doing more than just showcasing underground culture for an upmarket audience.

A key part of their new direction is working with young people from difficult backgrounds in the north-east London community where they are based.

With their own experiences as outsiders, members of Bassline hope to reach out to young people in a way that the authorities sometimes cannot.

In the process they aim to give the people they work with a platform for their skills and the chance to learn new ones.

Through a National Lottery grant, Bassline are developing 'Magic Moments' -- a project that will recruit 15 people from the ages of 16 to 25, for mentoring and circus skills training.

Magic Moments will culminate with a performance in the Bassline big top next year.

Charlie Edwards says Bassline Circus has helped him turn his life around

"The underlying thing is just to give the young people of Hackney the space for their voice to be heard," says Ms Veitch.

"In turn that totally challenges the popular image of kids today, which is bad-boy criminal."

One person who has already been turned around through his involvement with Bassline is Charlie Edwards, 20, now a graffiti artist with the circus, but who spent his childhood on traveller sites and his teens getting arrested for his "art".

"I've been in and out of cells since I was 13," he says. "That's the downside of graffiti, getting nicked."

But since being involved with Bassline, he says, "I can just paint, I don't have to look over my shoulder, worry about running."

Bassline supplies Edwards with spray cans, and boards to paint on. He now produces the circus back drops, and although he says he hates people watching him, he paints murals as a circus sideshow. He has even thought about teaching younger people his skills.

"I was...stealing things, doing drugs," he says.

But now he does "commissioned work, rather than doing work out of my own pocket and robbing people".

"Everyone was just dreaming of a techno circus, and now that dream has become a reality," says Ms Veitch with a smile.