Safety Code

• April 2007 Update
• Safety sayings
• An introduction to the value and process of determining effective professional safety guidelines
• Task Analysis Flowchart
• Historical Examples
• Safety Survey
  
  Update on Safety Code Development April 2007
  The ACAPTA Safety Sub-committee consists of the convenor, Deb Batten (Artistic Director, Legs on the Wall) with Scott Grayland (Head Trainer, Flying Fruitfly Circus) and Kate Reid (Project Coordinator, Brewarrina Indigenous Youth Circus), with input from  Joey Ruik (Sydney based rigger/equipment designer/set designer working with companies such as  Stalker, Urban Theatre Projects and Legs on the Wall.
  
  The Sub-committee presented it's initial draft towards safety guidelines at Fabulous Risk, the 2006 ACAPTA/Wollongong University/Circus Monoxide Circus and Physical Theatre Conference. The draft was presented for initial industry feedback and is not ready for public presentation. We hope to present another draft at the 2008 conference.
  
  ACAPTA is also currently working towards sourcing funding to appoint a professional Occupational Health and Safety Expert to work with the Safety Sub-committee and a post-graduate student to develop the draft guidelines into a document  that meets national OH&S standards as well a meeting the needs of the artists, tutors and organisations working in circus and physical theatre. Should the funding be successful, this project is scheduled to take place from 2008-2010.  
  
  ACAPTA cannot make any official recommendations regarding safety guidelines and practices. However, we may be able to connect you with appropriate industry professionals who can assist you with your enquiries.

Safety sayings

An introduction to the value and process of determining effective professional safety guidelines

The following is the initial investigation into creation of a Safety Code for use by Circus and Physical Theatre. Prepared for the Head to Head Conference 1999 by Teresa Blake.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have I ever incurred a work related injury or been involved either directly or indirectly in the work related injury of another?
• Do I expect, in the course of my career, to be injured or to be involved directly or indirectly in the injury of another?

If you answered no to either of these questions, have a look around, you're in a Circus Tent ! -

Are you sure you're at the right conference?

Accidents and injury, outside of the pretend shenanigans of slapstick clowning are no laughing matter. In fact they are much more likely to be a crying matter with good doses of pain, frustration, debilitation and recrimination involved. Is it possible to avoid them?

In order to even start to answer this question it is useful to try and redefine in a broader context what it is we do for a living. Stunts, acrobatics and circus skills are:

• the art of risk taking
• imminent danger held at bay by skill
• the seduction and capitulation of danger as entertainment
• the demonstration of control of the laws of nature
• the illusion of risk complicated by real risk

A demonstration of the 'lost' evolutionary abilities of bodily strength, agility and robustness for the vicarious thrill of the modern (safety seeking, rational) human.

Looking at our chosen profession in this light, it is easy to see that the usual occupational health and safety guidelines will be far from a perfect fit. We are in the business of risk taking, it is not a side effect of production it is the point of it. Other areas of the arts take artistic and financial risks, but circus and physical theatre win the trifecta with artistic, financial and physical risks involved.

No wonder then that words 'safety' and 'regulation' inspire heated discussion and dispute amongst members of our industry. The last thing we want is some bozo in a suit saying "that clown on the unicycle needs a helmet" or "no employee is allowed above the height of one metre without permission from the safety officer". Simplistic solutions to a complex problem will, in the end, only add to the destruction of the safety culture as people find ways to get around them. Being forced to partake in regulations that do not fit their context does not inspire respect of those rules.

Taking the risk entirely out of circus would be worse than bad for business, it would be the end of it.

We want to take risks, they're fun! Flirting with danger is immensely satisfying and sexy - one of the thrills that belong to human life. Trouble is our modern society seems to have civilised its way into a corner where risk is concerned. The desire to control the future and its frightening uncertainty has led to the mentality that all risk is bad and must be eliminated. Insurance with its attending paranoia, is no longer a choice but a necessity when the financial penalty of taking the blame is so high.

Who is responsible? If you are being sued, a court of law will decide this for you. But who really is responsible? Jens Rasmussen, Emeritus Professor, writes in his paper for the 'Safety in Action' conference 98:

Accidents appear to be caused by side effects of decisions made by different actors distributed in different organisations, at different levels of society, and during activities at different points in time. These decision makers are deeply emerged in their normal, individual work context. Their daily activities are not coupled in any functional way, only an accident as observed after the fact connects their performance into a particular coupled pattern. By their various, independent decisions and acts, they shape a casual path through the landscape along which an accidental course of events sooner or later may be released.

If you walk back down the path to accident, the answer to 'who is responsible' will be as long as the path itself. So the answer to the earlier question Is it possible to avoid them? Would seem to be an overwhelming NO.

But wait, just because something is very difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted - just ask a circus person.

The task of coming up with safety guidelines that will be a help rather than a hindrance in an industry that thrives on risk and innovation is indeed a complex task - one that only those with direct experience will have a hope of undertaking with any integrity. Professor Rasmussen again:

A basic way to improve safety of complex systems is to create a shared work support system which makes the 'deep structure' of the work space directly visible to the individual decision maker together with the boundaries of safe operation.

What are the deep structures that permeate the workplace of the circus or physical theatre performer? Some are easy to name but others remain hidden. Traditional circus acts have evolved safety mechanisms - trial and error have honed them over the years. In the teaching and re-teaching of these acts, the reasons for why something is as it is often gets left out. This would not seem to be a problem as long as you do as you were taught. But doing as you are taught denies the desire for artistic creation which New Circus now thrives on. Indeed, if you want to get funding it is imperative to be innovative.

The danger lurks in the gaps in safety culture knowledge. In order for risk taking to be successful as it moves out of its traditional environment a system wide analysis needs to take place with an emphasis on recognition and education. We need to decide what the relevant risks (those that can be dealt with by use of skill) are and try to eliminate the irrelevant ones.

The real trick is to avoid accidents. We need to try our hardest to prevent injury and to always continue to try, because its easy to forget or dismiss all the work that goes into nothing going wrong. We need to continue to experiment and innovate but we need to get smarter about it. Rather than sacrificing our bodies to the crash and burn school of experimentation we can look to the more scientific approaches that already exist in the areas of sports and dance. And we need to look to ourselves as producers, directors, choreographers, designers, riggers, performers etc and say where are the gaps in my knowledge and how can I go about filling them.

The job of a safety code/guidelines will be to comprehensively outline the areas of risk associated with the circus/physical theatre industry. Starting from the perspective of the person directly undertaking the risk, the performer, and radiating out to include all the sites visited on the possible pathway to injury.

The effort involved in this task will be worth it. The payoff will be increased career length for performers and increased productivity for companies. All that time spent in training will not be wasted with an early career-ending accident and the art form will benefit from the maturity gained.

Danger is sexy now that life has become safer. Stunt/circus/acrobatic skills will continue their incursion into all areas of the performing arts. It is time for proper respect to be paid to the complexity and difficulty of the repeated successful execution of these skills.

What I propose is:

• That a professional manual is written from the performers point of view for the circus and physical theatre industry.
• That this document is produced in consultation with experienced practitioners in relevant areas including: rigging, production management, equipment usage, body maintenance, safety science. Models exist for this type of work in the Safe Dance Report 1, 2 and 3 produced by, the Australian Dance Council - Ausdance between 1990-99.
• That further research is undertaken into the analysis of traditional circus acts for the evolved safety mechanisms they contain, into the types of injuries that are occurring and the conditions in which they occur, and into the scientific analysis of equipment and parameters for safe usage.
• That this research and its resulting documents be made available for use by educational bodies and other organisations that work with training and supporting practitioners of circus and physical theatre.

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Task Analysis Flow Chart

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An historical example of a comprehensively researched acrobatic manual.

Pages 3, 4

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This project has been assisted by the Federal Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.