Meet Gabriel Gonçalves who recently embarked on a juggling residency.
One of Circus Factory’s aim is to provide a training and development space for artists; this is done by daily use of our training facility and through the Circus Factory Residency Programmes: Factory Bites and Factory Days. With residencies well underway and some complete, let’s meet the artists who were awarded a residency with Circus Factory Cork.
Hi Gabriel, can you tell us about yourself generally?
An artist well-versed in different circus disciplines having objects manipulation or juggling as main one. I started as a self-taught practitioner and then started learning from other circus artists that were references to me. I’ve been to more than twenty circus conventions and festivals in South America and Europe where I’ve learned, performed and taught.
Tell us about your work?
I’ve been performing in different environments in the past ten years from streets and public spaces to nightclubs, festivals and theater stages. I try to add different disciplines while juggling even though I’m not a dancer or have a huge background of physical theater, I always try to bring these kinds of elements to the manipulation and performances.

Photo by Sara Pozzerle
Read about Chloe and her aerial residency!
Which residency were you awarded? Can you share with us what you intend on doing with the award?
I recieved Factory Bites where I intend to go deeper with my contact juggling routine for the performance called Gota in which I use the sounds of water to create an interactive manipulation between the objects and the soundtrack as well with my body and more.
Do you have any mentors for your residency?
Yes, Alex Allison will guide my mentorship. They have deeply researched body and manipulation to create language. We intend to build a choreography around the routine that already exists, basically trying to ‘polish’ it and to get as much as we can from the interaction of body/object manipulation.
What is the goal of the residency? Is there a show you would like to develop / a professional goal you’re working towards?
The main goal is to promote the performance that I’ve been doing in a technical and artistic way. I’ll be working on possible improvements and researching new ways of execution.
Follow Gabriel on Instagram and keep up to date with his work from the object manipulation and juggling residency.