Ellie DuBois: More women should be at the forefront of circus, No Show signposts this

Circus performer Ellie DuBois explains how she channelled her frustrations of how women are represented in the industry into her No Show, which runs at Soho Theatre from 22nd January. 

No Show arose from my time training to be a circus performer. I was in a class with 20 female and four aspiring male circus performers - they were all super talented. But, when I went to see shows out in the real world, I would see cast after cast who were all male. These companies - Racehorse, La Meute, Barely Methodical Troupe - were great, stuffed full of talented circus performers. All men. It made me wonder what parts would be on offer for me and the other talented, skilled women I graduated with. 

I always wanted to make my own work and so it was a short step to making No Show about my own and other female circus performers' experience of training and working in this industry - and it's a pretty depressing industry for women. You are objectified and expected to fall at the feet of men on a regular basis.

For No Show, I collaborated with five female circus performers combining our shared experience to make a show that showcases all of their skills - Cyr wheel, hair hanging, contortion and acrobatics - to challenge both the industry and the audience's expectations of what a female circus performer does and how women circus performers are represented on stage and are seen. The show is super funny, full of amazing tricks and it's lots of fun, but it is also our sly, subversive attempt to try and pull apart our industry and put it back together in a way that we want it to be.

When we started to make No Show, it was pre-#MeToo and #TimesUp. Those movements have led to lots of rumblings and discontent around the circus industry about the continuing dominance of male casts (sometimes with a single token female thrown in to be thrown around), and the lack of female representation in large circus showcases such as Cirque du Demain. But change is slow. The circus industry still looks very similar to the one I encountered while I was training. So, No Show is a way to keep talking about our experiences working in circus, and one which applies to many other industries - not just the arts - where women find themselves under-represented, talked over, mansplained and paid less than their male colleagues. Lots of women who have seen No Show recognise the world it depicts from their own working lives that have nothing to do with circus.

Like recent London shows such as Dance Nation and The Wolves, it is also a show in which women take up space and use their bodies to express themselves. Too often producers and programmers seem to think that work made by women cannot sit on larger stages and that we must be relegated to smaller studio spaces. We need more brave producers (like the super people at Soho Theatre) willing to take more of a risk on female-led work and to trust that there is as much of an audience for it as there is for seeing ten male circus performers on stage. Our sell-out experience at Summerhall during the Edinburgh Fringe demonstrated that there is not just an audience for female-led circus but a real hunger for it.

I have always believed that as an artist you should make the shows that you want to see, and so that is what I did. No Show is the circus/contemporary theatre show that I wish I could have seen when I was just starting out. One that would subvert expectations and inspire me to challenge those expectations that as a female circus performer - whatever my skills and strength - I would eternally be expected to play second fiddle to male skill and strength. And do it while wearing minimal sparkly clothing and doing the splits.

With sly humour, No Show signposts a different way of doing things, and judging by my own experiences and those of the young women who have flocked to No Show on tour, change is overdue. Both in the circus industry but also the wider world.