A guest blog entry from Simon Roth, founder of Pop-Up Circus, and curator of Pop-Up Circus VI at the Wandsworth Arts Festival and Fringe 2013.

For a brief moment a utopian world is built where people and art join forces in a state of joyous exhilaration. Entering the circus is entering an alternative reality – an age-old tradition of showcasing the weird and wondrous. Pop-Up Circus reminds us that life is short, that art is a mirror that reflects our souls and that nothing is as powerful as song, rhythm and dance. You come for the experience, to lose yourself in the frenzy of discovery.

Pop-Up Circus is a structure built to make things happen; to provide a platform for exceptional work and to forge new working relationships between artists across disciplines. For the past two years, prior to our collaboration with The Brick Box, my team and I have curated a steady stream of events that showcase visual art, music, dance, theatre, film, food, literature and performance. Our overriding mission is to bring the contemporary arts into the public sphere. We endeavour to pitch up at any given location and to create dialogue between communities through sincere, meaningful work.

I was delighted to work with Rosie and Eleanor from The Brick Box in producing Pop-Up Circus VI. They have an absolutely no-nonsense approach to getting things done, always with a view of the end result being something entertaining, fun and beautiful. It was exciting to put something together outside of East London, and it was a great opportunity to encounter a new audience and artistic community.