Daisy Bourne
Daisy Bourne is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia, where she was first mentored by Ali Smith.
She writes fiction, short stories and poetry, and is also an artist. Her last exhibition combined poetry, painting and short film.
Daisy, whose stage name is Daisy Black, is also a multi-skilled circus artist, creative director and founder of award-winning contemporary circus company Gossamer Thread Circus. Her skills range from aerial hoop, corde lisse and hula hoops, to swallowing fire and razor-blades and dancing the tango on broken glass. For the last fifteen years she has performed all over the UK and Europe from Zurich to Edinburgh, Helsinki to Paris; highlights include shows at the UN in Copenhagen, the Palmenhaus in Vienna and Berlin’s famous Wintergarten.
Since 2013 she has produced countless acclaimed cabaret & variety shows featuring world-class artists whose credits include Cirque Du Soleil and Disney, as well as three mid-scale ensemble theatre & circus shows by Gossamer Thread Circus, each developed with Arts Council Funding: Folie a Deux, premiering at Jacksons Lane; 250 Years of Circus in 60 Minutes that launched the Circus 250 celebrations in Norwich marking the anniversary of the birth of modern circus; and most recently, FERAL, a cross-artform project combining fine art, film, poetry, physical theatre and circus that began in 2021 as a series of short films marking each turning point of the year from Spring Equinox to Winter Solstice, shot at Wild Ken Hill, a large-scale rewilding project in West Norfolk. The FERAL project has since developed into a live outdoor touring show drawing on our connection with the land, the more-than-human world, ecology, folklore and ritual. Described by audiences as “urgent poetry; a powerful language that is needed now,” the show was shortlisted by the CHWA for the Healthy People & Planet Award in 2025, and the films won Juried Choice for Short Non-Documentary at the Circus International Film Festival, and were shortlisted for the EuropeNow Film Festival in 2023.