The reinvention of an Australian circus By Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

Sydney Published duration 30 July 2015

image copyright Steven Godbee image caption Circa's latest show is a collaboration with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra

Australia's Circa is part of a wave of circus performers who have transformed the way we think about shows held under the big top.

When Circa was first unveiled to the world, it received a raft of bad reviews.

"It was vitriolic!" recalls the Brisbane-based company's artistic director Yaron Lifschitz.

Until then, circus was clowns and cheap tricks, glitter and sparkles, tents and red noses. It was big, bold, and brassy.

But in 2004 Circa began to break the rules.

Out went the traditional costumes and sets; in came emotionally raw acrobatics.

This new form of circus was physical poetry inspired by jazz and ballet that celebrated abstract rhythm, shapes, and form; for the first time it pushed circus into the realm of high art.

image copyright Steven Godbee

"We weren't afraid to be a bit posh, to have an aesthetic inspired by contemporary dance, to make it a bit high-brow rather than corny," recalls Lifschitz over lunch in Sydney.

It was only after he had been directing for a few years that he found the "courage and fool-heartedness" to abandon everything he knew - and that was when Circa was formed.

Over a decade later, along with the likes of Cirque du Soleil and Circus Oz, Circa has helped reinvent circus.

Today, artsy circus and acrobatics shows flood festivals the world over, with bling giving way to unostentatious beauty celebrating the human body.

Lifschitz has now directed over 60 productions and Circa has toured more than 33 countries.

The son of a headmaster and a doctor, he trained as a theatre director at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) in Sydney but was soon attracted to circus, despite a lack of on-stage experience.

image copyright Steven Godbee image caption When the lights go down, anything can happen says Circa's Yaron Lifschitz

"If you feel out of your depth and you're a bit of a fraud, that is a really good place to start making work from, because you take nothing for granted," he told the BBC.

"Circus is something you need to actually be there for. It's the art form par excellence for the presence and the actual," he says.

At a dress rehearsal of Circa's new show French Baroque, which premiered in Sydney in July, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra belt out the operatic music of Rameau.

Performers dressed in elaborate court costumes, including voluptuous flowing dresses of bold reds, yellows and purples, dangle from the rafters, balance precariously on chairs, or jive with multiple hoops, going faster and faster until they are a frenzied blur.

The mood switches between a joyous, flirtatious camaraderie and deep melancholy.

Blind to gender

"When the lights go down in the theatre there is this bolt of electricity; you feel like anything [can] happen," explains Lifschitz.

In French Baroque, women lift men or form the base for a human pyramid. In past shows, female performers have been just as likely to catch men in their arms as to place their shoes in their male counterparts' mouths to haul themselves to the trapeze.

image copyright Steven Godbee

Lifschitz maintains that he is "blind" to gender.

"I never think men verses women. I just go 'Who can do what with whom? And how can we make it harder?'"

Most of the company's 25 acrobats, many of whom start training as young as 10 years old, are from Australia.

Traditionally-trained Russian and Chinese circus performers have exceptional skills but Lifschitz has found they are often too conservative.

"Because we are always doing the wrong thing with the artist - putting men on top of women, doing tricks the wrong way, upside down and back to front - they lack the versatility and the flexibility," he explains.

image copyright Steven Godbee

Pain is also part of the deal. Most circus performers "have a brand of masochism about them," says Lifschitz, who also pushes himself to the edge.

In August, Circa will premier Close Up at the Edinburgh Fringe, a show Lifschitz dubs as his most artistically "dangerous" yet.

It opens with a huge screen showing slow-motion, close-up footage of acrobats dusting their hands with powder.

Four performers watch mesmerised before it gradually dawns on them that they too have hands. Enraptured they touch their own hands, and each-others, before doing hand acrobatics, and merging into the audience to hold their hands too.

Lifschitz likens the show to a watch in which you can see all the mechanics whirring.

"The idea is, how close can you get to an acrobat? You do get this genuine sense of proximity and intimacy," he says.

"It's very disarming. We have nowhere to hide."