NICA Circus Showcase 2013

Overview

The circus is one of those things you either love or hate. Usually around age ten or eleven you fall in love with the spectacle of it — you become enamoured of the daring feats and the glittery costumes — either that, or you swear off it completely and the smell of hay or peanuts acts as a lifelong trigger for your intense phobia of clowns. Just like Vegemite, Bjork, or Miley Cyrus; the circus is just one of those things you can't feel indifferent about.

Without the tent, without the fairy floss, and without the terrifying clowns, it's entirely different though. A fact that the National Institute of Circus Arts are proving with the talent on show at this year's final showcase. Featuring 21 students — handpicked all the way from Noumea, New Caledonia to Ulladulla, NSW — this 90-minute graduate show presents an entertaining vision of contemporary circus arts that knowingly leans on farce to create something that teeters nicely between carnival and cabaret.

Translated to a stand-alone stage show like this however, the relationship between performer and audience can seem a little off. You never quite know when or how much to clap as the impressive feats come in such rapid-fire succession, and because of this audience expectations go through the roof — oh, that was only one backflip so I'll save my applause 'til the end I guess. The show is also pretty disjointed as it oscillates wildly between full-blown flamboyant celebration and moments of surprisingly dark introspection. There is both a rollicking musical number to the Scissor Sisters' 2012 hit 'Let's Have a Kiki!' and a vertical rope performance over a black mattress that has unsettling connotations of teen suicide. I'm not overstating it to say the same performer boogied down in a Hawaiian shirt in one scene then snarled through a leather gimp mask in another. All in all, if you're going in with any expectation for narrative, overall theme, or cohesion, you're going to be disappointed.

But this isn't really what it's about, and the novelty and precision of the acts on display far outweigh any criticisms you may have of the show as a whole. Hanne Grant and Jonathan Campos were a great source of humour while being amazingly skilled with hula hoops and the Chinese pole respectively. Daniel Price gave the first dark yet impressive performance on the roue cyr — an apparatus I didn't even know existed. Then the drama ran through the acts with Kate Nelson's seamless work on double rope and Emily Collins' graceful contortions with tissu (aerial silk). Other performances included tightwire, cloudswing, vertical rope, juggling, adagio, swinging trapeze, clowning, hand balancing, roman rings, aerial hoop, and swinging pole.

Once you forgive the stark contrasts between light and dark, the show is fantastic. Directors Megan Jones and Meredith Kitchen even say with the program, the showcase "truly reflects the diverse personalities that belong to [the] graduating third year students. Quirky, sassy, fun, intense, and dynamic..." And with this, the show succeeds. It's accessible, entrancing and easy to watch — a testament to the enduring appeal of spectacle.

Image: Aaron Walker.