#ferrari parkour academy

[waytooobsessedwithlife]

omg 😭

The fact that F1 even posted it on their twitter as Ferrari parkour academy

Mexican GP '24 // FP3 ↳ 'Bella questa!' 😂

[thewidowstanton]

Christopher Thomas, Cyr wheel artist, Simple Cypher, Young Stage International Circus Festival

Cyr wheel artist Christopher Thomas graduated from the National Centre for Circus Arts in London in 2016. While training there he took two years out to perform at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi and in Baía dos Piratas in Portugal. As part of his degree he appeared with leading Australian circus troupe Circa in Depart at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park during the LIFT Festival. Christopher set up the Cyr/hip hop company Simple Cypher with fellow graduate Kieran Warner, having been runners up for the Deutsche Bank Award for Creative Enterprise and winners of the National Centre of Circus Arts Business Plan Award.

In 2016, Simple Cypher took part in Breakin' Convention at Sadler's Wells and this year they appeared in the Resolution season at The Place and headlined at Move It. Having been unable to accept the offer of competing at the European Youth Circus Festival in Wiesbaden in 2016 because of other committments, Christopher will now be taking part at the 9th International Circus Festival Young Stage in Basel from 12-16 May 2017. He chats to Liz Arratoon about his route to success and explains how he has never let being epilepetic hold him back.

The Widow Stanton: Is there any showbusiness in your family? Christopher Thomas: No, but my six-year-old niece, Meeka, has been inspired by me. She's training at a gymnastics club and I hope to guide her into the circus life.

How did you start out? I took GCSE dance for a bit of a joke… because it was easy. There was never ever a plan with it, it was just something I grew into. I got into hip hop dance and trained at the Youth Dance Academy Urban. The urban course was a new platform based in Swindon, where I'm from. There was a six-week introductory course and then the next year it got set up as a full course and we'd go in on weekends, like, Sundays, and during school holidays. Their job was to get young people into further education and into hip hop dance. That's where I met Kieran. We went back and performed there not too long ago. It was people who've moved on in their careers going back.

How did you get from hip hop dancer to the NCCA? I spent some time training at ballet and contemporary school but I didn't feel there was a future there for me. It was fun at the beginning but it wasn't me; it wasn't the same vibe. Circus school was recommended to me by Youth Dance Academy Urban and by my teacher at college. At first I had that stereotype image of what circus was: jugglers, clowns, lions and all that but I came up to London to an open day, to have a look and that's when my mind was really opened towards it. I saw Billy George training on the Cyr wheel and as soon as I did I was like, 'I want to be a part of that'.

Did you and Kieran go together? We didn't. I was the first member of the Dance Academy to come up to circus school. After my second year I had two years out and I worked in Abu Dhabi for a year and then in Portugal in the pirate show, Baía dos Piratas. During those two years, Kieran came up to the NCCA and when I returned we were in the same year.

How hard was Cyr to learn? I thought it was going to be a lot easier than I anticipated. There's so much more to just the skills; like learning how to combat the dizziness, your hands blistering, your spatial awareness. The most important thing was learning how to bail safely enough, like, the wheel can throw you out a lot of the time, so for me learning how to bail was one of the most important things.

What is the hardest thing you do? [Laughs] I'd say probably holding down a routine. [Laughs] I improvise a lot. A lot of my best material comes from that; even when I trained as a hip hop dancer I'd be pushed to the back of the routines and then be out front when it came to throwing down a free style. When I came back to the third year at school that was when I was really focused on creating my final-year devised piece, really focused on setting material instead of just relying on improvising and having fun.

Are any of your moves unique to you? Yes. Probably one of my signature skills; I call it Dolphin Dives. Other people are trying it but I think they're missing a step. It came when I was at school from never being able to land a backflip. It would always be around the side. And one day I really went over my head and my foot connected on to the outside of the wheel and I was like, 'That was really good. I'll just keep going with that', and that developed into being able to take a hand off and being able to hold my weight upside down on the foot. There are a lot of variations that have developed from that, like playing around with hooking my feet on the outside of the wheel.

When I think of how Cyr wheel skills have moved on from the early days, it's gone crazy. It's good to be a part of that. Wanting to be a part of specialising the wheel has helped me. Coming from a hip hop background it's frowned upon to copy other people's moves, we call it 'biting' and that's stuck with me throughout my circus training; I always try to be original with my skills or least make my own variations on tricks.

What did you do at Ferrari World? It's a theme park with a resident 35-minute circus show. I was part of that cast. I used to do the pre-show, coming out to do a clown/juggling number, then I'd perform a Cyr wheel routine and on Sundays I got to come out for the finale driving an electric Ferrari, so that was fun. It was funny because my mum could never remember the name of Cyr wheel. When I got the job at Ferrari World she was saying 'steering wheel' instead of Cyr wheel, and I was like, 'Mum, have you been telling people I'm doing 'steering wheel' in Ferrari World?'. [Laughs]

How did The NCCA prize help you? We got £10,000 from the NCCA and £1,000 as runners-up in the Deutsche Bank award. When we did the Deutsche Bank interview we thought we were really on point. We thought we'd got it. We were so close… but then getting the NCCA couldn't have been better. It helped us set up the company and really gave us the confidence of ‘This is not just a plan, it is going ahead'.

And someone thinks you're really good… It's a weight off your shoulders and it gave us a lot more belief that it was actually happening and becoming reality. We've been very fortunate so far. We got a lot of support from different places, like Jacksons Lane… Swindon Dance has given us space, so right now we're doing very well in terms of our budget. We are being supported by various organisations.

What do you like about working with Kieran? I think having a relationship from our dance career and coming into circus together, we're both able to combine those two things and work well together. Since I've got more into circus, I did fizzle out of hip hop dancing, but Kieran's definitely remained at the frontline of hip hop, going to the battles, judging, competing, teaching, so we complement each other.

You've done amazing things: Breakin' Convention, Resolution and Move It… Yes, that was great. We did four and half minutes, which was very short compared to Resolution, which was 20 minutes. Move It was the first big dance thing I ever saw when I was getting into dance.

How have you handled being epileptic? I know when I'm going to have a seizure and I've never had one while I'm performing.

What would you say to others in your position? This is something important to me. I have epilepsy. It was a difficult thing to talk about but as I've matured it's become a lot easier. I've become a lot more open about it and it's made it a lot easier to manage. It is there but it hasn't in any way prohibited me from having a successful career in circus. It has made it difficult with some employers and I understand their fears. It does bring a risk to the company but my thoughts are that circus wouldn't be what it is without risk. There's more chance of a performer breaking their leg onstage than of me having a seizure. Fortunately I have warning signs in advance and I only have two to three a year.

With communication and understanding it is completely manageable. I've been involved with Young Epilepsy, a charity promoting awareness of epilepsy and I think there's still a need for awareness. In the UK there are more than 600,000 living with the condition; there are 40 different types. When I say I have epilepsy and I'm a performer, I always get the same question about whether flashing lights affect me. But photogenic epilepsy only affects a minute number of people with epilepsy.

What are you doing at Young Stage? Time's ticking down… I'm showing my degree piece that I developed from having epilepsy. It was my inspiration point. I'm excited to be performing it again. It had been a year since I performed it but recently I did it at the Extreme Convention in Antwerp.

Do you hope to achieve anything in parricular by being there? I'm really enjoying performing at festivals and my main goal is just to continue doing that.

Have you had a career highlight so far? I appreciate the smaller things, you know. It's the story behind a stage or a company that makes it special. Working with the pirate show in Portugal, Moliére Productions, it was a very small thing, which grew massively. The couple running it were given this opportunity and went out and found a group of parkour freerunners and were like: "We're gonna give you a job, we're gonna make a show." It was just an idea that blossomed. I loved performing in Rotterdam at Open Stage because of the story behind it; a group of like-minded people had this amazing space and decided to use it, like, beg, borrow everything to make it happen, then it grows.

What are your ambitions for the company? I'd like Simple Cypher to grow into a full show, which is bigger than just me and Kieran. We'd like to create a platform for dancers from Urban to come to. It's nice seeing students following in our steps. There's Pete [Shirley], who's in his final year at the NCCA now – he came from Dance Academy Urban as well – so we're trying to start something small that will grow.

Christopher Thomas takes part in the Young Stage International Circus Festival in Basel from 12-16 May 2017. Simple Cypher is hosting Cypher Stories, a hip hop and circus-themed evening, at Jacksons Lane in London on 21 July 2017.

Picture credits: Mark Morreau; Wes Ryan

Twitter: @SimpleCypher @YoungStageBasel @youngepilepsy @National_Circus

Follow @TheWidowStanton on Twitter

Read about straps artist Lj Marles, who is also taking part at Young Stage