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Circa, The Space Between Premiere Dance Theatre

May 6-10 The Space Between Production Lyrical, physically extreme and joyously sensual. The Space Between is a powerful exploration of the things that keep us apart and our desire to be together. Three performers journey through explosive acrobatic encounters, lyrical duets & supple physical contortions, as they explore love, loss and desire. Visually drenched in layers of projection & set to a blend of Jacques Brel’s songs, industrial sounds by Darrin Verhagin & DJ Shadow; this is stripped back circus of the heart. THE SPACE BETWEEN

• Is passionate physical love triangle • Features a powerful and moving soundtrack • Uses a stunning blend of projection and theatrical lighting • Seamlessly integrates a range of high-level acrobatic, tumbling and

trapeze skills with dance, movement and physical theatre styles • Has received rave reviews everywhere it has played • Sold out in Brisbane and Melbourne • Been performed in 9 countries

About the Company Circa is a leading innovator in circus in Australia. Based in Brisbane at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Circa has pioneered the re-imagining of circus in Australia as a brave new art form. Circa’s works are strikingly new ways to experience circus. Their work is fuelled by intellectual rigour, safe danger and professionalism, and embraces the innovative use of music, multimedia, interaction, improvisation and collaborations with exceptional artists. Circa began life eighteen years ago as Rock n’ Roll Circus. Over this time they have trained with the Shanghai Circus School in China, toured Australia, Noumea and Indonesia, hosted the first Contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre Conference, and taken part in the Melbourne International Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Equinox Festival, out of the Box Festival, Melbourne Fringe festival and Livid Festival amongst others. Company members have also

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performed at the Wold Expo in Hanover, Germany and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Synopsis The Space Between is a powerful physical exploration of the spaces between and within people. The production features deconstructed circus skills including high level tumbling and acrobatics, a soundtrack of contemporary music and chansons by Jaques Brel and multimedia elements. The show follows the journeys of three characters in a series of increasingly intense duets and solos and group sequences. Multiple narratives are suggested by the interplay of bodies, circus skills and space. The show is notable for its stripped back aesthetic with the stage action contained in a single bloc k of mats, lit by a single light (interspersed with a projector sequences) and an absence of traditional circus equipment. The Space Between is grouped in three broad sections. Part 1- Breaking Through The characters explosively connect… Walking, pausing, falling backwards. A pattern of repulsion and attraction as the performers tumble in and out of powerful encounters. Contorted handstands. A violently passionate game of acrobatic twister morphing into a dynamic acrobatic routine. A seductive hoop diving routine in and through the spaces between limbs and a scarf. Brel’s La Valse a Mille Temps plays – an invitation to dance but it is a solo dance with the performer falling and tumbling in space Part 2- The Possibilities of Other The desires of the characters contort the acrobatic space itself… The gulf between what can be said and what can be physically enacted. A choreographed tumble where two characters isolate and extend the explosive moments before.

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An intimate duet set to Brel’s La Chanson de Viex Amons. Projectors light the moving bodies as they explore their relationship through acrobatic form. One is left alone within a tiny revolving rectangle of light. A ‘magnetic tumble’ –the performers move towards and repel each other to Cake’s version of Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps. More Brel - bodies pluck each other up, slap, roll away, turn upside down. Finally, pure acrobatics with strong lines and powerful extensions. Part 3- Don’t Leave The characters break apart and hold on… A woman walks over and around a man’s body. On the soundtrack, Laurie Anderson mediates on how walking is actually falling. Trapeze – an intimate duo and then a lyrical solo. Two men perform an extended acrobatics routine where their hands remain entirely connect. Dynamic full twisting butterflies alternate with extruded contorted planches. Increasingly dynamic pitches, hoop diving moves, tumbles and rolls until the three performers are, at last, in the same space. The Space Between suggests a multiplicity of narratives but is not strictly speaking a story. Rather it is a formal study of how circus languages can be broken to reflect the fraught of human contact. As the poet Ann Carson writes “Contact is crisis”. BIOGRAPHY Artistic Director- Yaron Lifschitz Is a graduate of the University of NSW and NIDA where he was the youngest director ever accepted in its prestigious graduate director’s course. Since graduating, Yaron has directed over 50 productions including large scale events, opera, theatre, physical theatre and circus. He was foundation artistic director of the Australian Museum’s Theatre Unit, Head Tutor in Directing at Australian Theatre for Young People and is a regular guest tutor at NIDA. With Circa, Yaron has created works such as Sonata for Then Hands, he Space Between and Figaro Variations. His recent works have been reviewed as being “stunning”, “exquisite” and “the standard to which all other circuses can aspire”. Yaron lives in Brisbane with his son, Oscar, and is currently completing a

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Masters in Creative Writing. His passion is creating works of philosophical and poetic depth from the traditional languages of circus. Circa Ensemble Is a multi-skilled group of circus artists who each have an average of 12 years of skills training. They are selevted on the basis of their potential as artists and work throughout the year to develop techniques for extending the artistic possibilities of circus. Performer Darcy Grant Joined the Flying Fruit Fly Circus at age 13. After touring Australia and overseas for six years, Darcy went on to teach at the Little Big Tops in Melbourne. In 2003, Darcy travelled to Canada to research the world’s leading physical theatre/circus companies before joining Circa in early 2004. Darcy is an acrobat, tumbler, unicycle rider, diabolist and handbalancer. Darcy is highly skilled circus trainer and regularly leads Circa’s community training programs. Performer Chelsea McGuffin Has performed for over 7 years within the circus/physical theatre industry and has performed with Circa since 2001. Chelsea originally trained at the Centre for Performing Arts in Adelaide as a dancer before working with companies including Circus Monoxide, Queensland Theatre Company and as Artistic Director with Vulcana Women’s Circus. In 2002, Chelsea received funding from the Foundation for Young Austarailians to train at the Moscow State Circus School, with international clown Angela Descastro, Kate Denoborough, Barbara Mullin and Donna Jackson. Chelsea’s primary interests are aerials, tight wire, hula-hoops, physical movement and the collaboration of these skills and art forms. With Circa she has focussed her training on the integration of circus and movement to continue to explore, create and develop a physical language for the space between different artforms. Performer David Carberry Joined the Flying Fruit Fly Circus at age 11, graduating in 2001. With the Circus he has trained extensively with Russian and Chinese mastertrainers and has performed in Hawaii, New Zealand, and throughout Australia. He undertook 5 months of teaching in Sweden and works as an acrobatics teacher. David is a champion skateboarder and a professional DJ. David brings contortion, tumbling and acrobatic skills along with a refined movement vocabulary. Performance History

• September 2004 – 14 performances for ENERGEX Brisbane Festival • August 2005 – 14 performances at Judith Wright Center, Brisbane

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• September 2005- 10 performance at North Melbourne Town Hall • October 2005 – Showcase in Seoul at PAMS arts market • February 2006- 2 performances at Adelaide Fringe • May – August 2006 performances in UK, Sibiu Festival, Szigert Festival,

Noorderzon Festival and showcase at the International Tansmesse, Duseldorf, Osaka and Montreal (CINARS)

REVIEWS The Age | September 10, 2005 | Cameron Woodhead, Reviewer | 345 Words

REVIEWS & PREVIEWS Circus, Chamber Music, Extravaganza

CIRCUS REVIEW: THE SPACE BETWEEN Circa North Melbourne Town Hall Arts House, until September 17

STRADDLING the divide between circus and contemporary dance, Brisbane's Circa brings us a new and uniquely dynamic kind of performance.

The Space Between, its latest show, is a circus act like no other. There are, of course, acrobatics galore but, unlike a traditional circus, these extraordinary feats of physical prowess are about more than just the spectacle.

Instead, Circa aims to use the techniques of the big top as a form of dramatic communication: to suggest moods, situations, and even the occasional mini-narrative. From the opening sequence, which features a veritable orgy of tumbling, the skill and raw presence of the three performers make themselves felt.

What follows is an hour-long showcase of balance, strength and flexibility that remains tight and expressively choreographed throughout. Highlights include David Carberry's awesome display of socket-popping contortions, and Chelsea McGuffin's and Darcy Grant's riveting, inventively conceived static trapeze routine.

Director Yaron Lifschitz has set The Space Between to an eclectic and at times jarring array of music: from J. S. Bach and the songs of Jacques Brel to the latest in experimental electronica.

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But there is a conflict at the heart of the physical performance: it somersaults (sometimes quite literally) between intimacy and alienation, between sensuality and torment - and the sound design accentuates those tensions.

The one weak moment is the brief, ham-fisted dialogue. Native speakers of the language of the body, the performers come across as foreign tourists in the realm of verbal theatre. But this is a minor quibble in what is otherwise a seamless and utterly captivating production that redraws the limits to which circus can aspire.

At the performance I saw the audience didn't immediately applaud. Not because they weren't enthralled by the performance, but because they didn't want it to end.

RT69 | November 2005 | Leah Mercer | 495 Words From the moment of being directed to Circa’s studio rather than the main performance space at the Judith Wright Centre, The Space Between is something out of the ordinary. With the audience placed up against the 4 walls in a single row of seats facing a rectangular mat in the centre of the room, the space is bare, except for a single trapeze hanging in the centre. This sparse beginning is a kind of empty canvas that we will watch paint itself. Lit only from above and sometimes assisted by projections, the mat becomes textured with shadows that create shapes, or inversely, spaces in which the performers place themselves. In the light and in between, the performers are confined and defined. This recurring attention to space is in keeping with the production’s exploration “into the things that keep us apart and our desire to be together”. These lighting states also ensure that this is a piece about bodies rather than faces and when these bodies (performers Chelsea McGuffin, Darcy Grant and David Carberry) enter and take their place there is an impassive quality, an effortlessness that is neatly contradicted by the moment they engage and the performance begins. The passion and effort builds in an accumulation of moments, of stunning solo dexterity, beautiful duets and gorgeous ensemble work. This is a work of momentum and of images tumbling one after the other. The moving bodies, the riffing physical images and the constant, changing patterns of light on the floor create rich impressions. The integrated soundtrack ranges from Jacques Brel songs to industrial sounds. When it describes “walking and falling at the same time” we seem to have lost

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track of which way is up and which way is down as the performers defy our logical understanding of what bodies can do. When McGuffin is lifted up to the trapeze, the vertical dimension of the space—right there in front of us the whole time—seems to open up. And that’s one of the many qualities of this work, what it creates out of thin air. McGuffin’s work on the trapeze is stunning, an exquisite, crash mat-free, heart-stopping duet, performer melding with apparatus. The other two performers are equally compelling. Carberry has the flexibility of a rag doll coupled with amazing feats of strength, while Grant brings a mix of grace and danger. The only false note came in the stories told by McGuffin and Grant. Without the flair or seamlessness intrinsic in every other element of the production, the texts seemed oddly out of place. This is a brave work, a simple performance that is strikingly complex, without tricks and yet full of them. Resting on the skills and presence of its 3 performers, The Space Between gives them no room to hide, nor do they need it.

Circa Rock’n’Roll Circus Ensemble, The Space Between, director Yaron Lifschitz, Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane, Aug 17-Sept 3 See more on Circa in An Axis of Edges, p8

Herald Sun | September 9 2005 | Harbant Gill | 506 Words Joining the Dots

YOU can't even put three dots on a page without having a really dramatic relationship between them, circus artistic director Yaron Lifschitz says.

So he has chosen a trio for his Brisbane-based company Circa's The Space Between, coming to Melbourne ahead of a European tour.

"I became really interested in the geometries of three . . . when two people had some kind of connection, one person was always either excluded or between the other two," he says.

"So it seemed a really apt way of looking at how people connected with each other -- and got in the way of each other as well.

"The piece looks at incredibly volatile, passionate human contact. For me, it is an existential drama

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-- it is what we go through every time we try to connect with another or with ourselves."

Circa's raw hour-long show explores the barriers to intimacy, yet speaks intensely to the audience.

"It's like circus or life with its skin off . . . the audience feels like the outer garments of the performance," Lifschitz says.

"It's not an easy Neighbours-like soap opera. It's really about exactly what are those barriers to intimacy and how we yearn to get through them.

"The relationships explored aren't simply romantic ones, they are between parents and children, between people and themselves, between our fantasies and our realities, between our hopes and our fears.

"The show is not about allusion and metaphor; it is this very powerful look at these forgotten spaces inside us.

"It's the most uncompromising piece we've ever done."

Lifschitz, a NIDA and University of NSW graduate who has directed more than 50 shows, uses music from Bach to Laurie Anderson and contemporary sounds for performers Chelsea McGuffin, Darcy Grant and David Carberry.

"Its core is a set of songs by Jacques Brel that creates an emotive universe," he says.

"One of the reasons Brel is so interesting to me is that initially he sounds like a generic French crooner, but in fact his music has an extraordinary depth and restraint . . . it's incredibly moving. but it doesn't just let it all hang out.

"You want to feel like you're constantly tuning into something different, new and exciting."

Lifschitz says his is a circus show with almost no circus features such as clowning, juggling or tightwire.

But it is crammed with circus skills -- tumbling, acrobatics, aerial work.

"We've really stripped it back -- what is it about our bodies and the spaces between bodies?

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"We've applied a certain kind of stress and curving to the normal kind of acrobatic and tumbling languages that we use. They get warped.

"What happens is that that warping is exactly the same thing as what happens emotionally inside a person.

"It abstracts certain circus acts. For example somebody does a hoop-diving routine, but they do it entirely through a scarf that somebody else holds and through the spaces between their arms.

"But it doesn't look anything like a circus you've ever seen before."

Herald Sun | September 13 2005 | Stephanie Glickman | 216 Words

BRISBANE'S Circa keeps pushing the expressive capabilities of circus.

In its previous shows in Melbourne, its experimental tendencies yielded works that were only partly satisfying.

But with The Space Between, director Yaron Lifschitz (above) and company have hit the nail on the head and created a tight hour-long piece of incredible depth and physical skill.

Simple in its presentation, with an unadorned space and music ranging from Jacques Brel to Bach, The Space Between succeeds because of its well-conceived movement scenarios.

Based in acrobatics, but incorporating dance and trapeze, the physical language beautifully encapsulates a range of human interactions and emotions.

It is so rich and sharply honed that when the performers briefly break into talk, some intensity diminishes.

Individually, David Carberry, Darcy Grant and Chelsea McGuffin offer various strengths and energies. As an ensemble, they meld into organic combinations, alternating roles of physically supporting and being supported.

Lifschitz's direction intelligently uses the cast's diversity to its fullest potential and builds a well-paced flow without over-extending the material.

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Traditionally, the thrill of circus is in the tricks themselves. Here, the zing comes from the power of the choreography and the placement of tricks within it to form an expressive content.

In The Space Between Circa has found a winning combination of physical virtuosity and dramatic flow.

M/C Reviews | August 24 2005 | Chloe Goodyear | 990 Words

The Circa Studio in the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts is intimate, but it’s bare – the perfect canvas for exacting, deliberate and precise performance embodying the intimacy of human relationships. Love triangles, duets and the relationship with the self, thrown into stark relief by a bare space as set. The warmth and intimacy generated on stage is enforced by positioning the artists and audience so near each other, closing in the traditional space without the foils of stage, rows of seating and dedicated off-stage entrance. Like a splash of red paint on the canvas, all design – lighting, costuming, sound and props, as well as the choice of cast, assume a particularly strong significance. All are excellent in this production.

The cart-wheeling and tumbling of the opening scene established not only the cyclic nature of the relationships under scrutiny, but also set the scene for Circa – a company that draws strength from simplicity and meaning from imagery and suggestion. Though I was looking for more information concerning the history and artistic intention of The Space Between, originally presented for the 2004 Energex Festival, the circular flyer did accurately present both the image and hopefully, the intention of the company – that the audience will discover their own version of the creation, and needs little instruction on response.

Artists cite risk and immediacy as the hooks of circus, and both are present in this performance. From an audience perspective, good circus is related to skill – the performer’s ability to make things that are technically challenging look effortless, but also to their capacity to endow the movements with a mood or sentiment that contributes to the theme of the piece. Circus has something in common with mime in that skill and technique still require a good amount of that intangible gift that makes their every action, as their only means of expression, compelling viewing. It is a little to do with confidence, and a little to do with charm.

Chelsea McGovern is so skilled, so charming, that it’s possible – being swept up with her expression and physical emotional range – to overlook her technique and control. She’s expressive, with firm footing on the rocky ground between

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physical theatre and acting and her dance training obvious and well applied. Not all performers are actors, but these artists have a graceful and deliberate quality, as well an ensemble complicite that complements their strength and skill to make watching them a pleasure. Darcy (Grant) and Chelsea’s duets (played out in a square of flickering light to a soundtrack reminiscent of all that’s inhuman) are particularly memorable and touching, with the hoops we jump through, the push-pull nature, manipulation and domination explored with a physical delicacy often lost in spoken work. In his Circa debut, ex-Flying Fruitfly David Carberry’s rhythmic tumbling and somersaulting contribute strongly to keep the pace dictated by Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz – a pace perfectly suited to the length and nature of this piece. Pained and jerky movements, verging on contortion in his solo work, were the perfect foil for the intimacy and grace of his encounters with Chelsea and Darcy, and demonstrated and impressive physical range. David’s strength is currently in his skill base, but it’s inevitable that his emotional capacity will be tapped if he continues to work with Circa.

With the French renowned as most fluent in the international language of love, the music of Jacques Brel is well chosen. Torment and torture are conveyed through mood, the language interpreted by the bodies of the artists. Circus could well be the physical embodiment of French, with an appropriate expression for all circumstances and the borrowing of language when their own won’t serve. The Circa performers are powerful diplomats, communicating confidently with diverse skills. Dance speaks where adagio can’t, trapeze is used to highlight isolation and physical comedy, a flicker of magic and interpretive dance converge for ‘le week end chaud’ – a hot, intense emotional tryst with each other and the audience lasting just under an hour.

In a sound design so moody and so deliberate, the choice to include Darcy’s spoken story about being built up by a protein-pushing Chinese trainer, as well as a short rumination from Chelsea and Darcy about memory and intimacy, seemed unnecessary. Several songs with English words were used to good effect, and the intrusion of the spoken pieces was confusing, and didn’t advance the story that the cast were already telling.

The beauty of the routines is that while they may be linked in basic narrative, there is no didactic play or order to interpret it logically. The mind locks into the pace and mood of the work. Rather than following a storyline as in traditional dance or theatre, or oohing and ahing in applause over skill presentation, The Space Between is experienced as a series of jolts, impulses and stream of consciousness. The pieces that are played close to the music become comedy – interpretive dance lightens a mood but doesn’t break it. There’s an honesty and integrity which is a refreshing change to the blatant brow-beating anguish of

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some physical theatre, or the of uncomfortable intimacy of the same concepts explored in words.

The chance to appreciate the skills of the artists came at the end, with the lights coming up on an audience drawing a collective breath and applauding their obvious appreciation. The capacity was less expected, and fewer for the amount of viewers the space could hold, but that could be contributed to the fact that the show is a re-mount. Circa are about to embark on a tour to Melbourne, and with a higher density of show-going public, they should enjoy a well-deserved success.

Circa’s real triumph is the physicalisation of the emotional and mental mechanics of relationships. The intended and accidental manipulations, violence, tenderness and frailty of the human state are explored deliberately, poignantly and gracefully by the artists and director, leaving a satisfied and fulfilled audience basking in the afterglow.

The Courier Mail | September 13 2004| Gillian Wills | 444 words

YARON Lifschitz challenges the audience to suspend expectations of entertainment and prepare for a more meaningful communication in his latest excursion into re-imagined circus.

Circa's latest production is an artistic and athletic foray into minimalism. There is no narrative or climactic arc to the hour's performance. Instead, performers Darcy Grant, Chelsea McGuffin and Rockie Stone gracefully range through fluid sequences of spectacular lifting manoeuvres, supple physical contortions and paired acrobatic prowess.

There are entanglements of multiple limbs, flurries of parallel backward and forward-tumbling routines, and similarly confronting segments that eerily evoke passages of human behaviour. Circa invites its observers to interpret these poetically shaped circus acts and repertoire of startling movements in any way they choose.

An eclectic sound collage of a seemingly random selection of musical snippets presents extracts from the music of J.S. Bach, Jacques Brel, Laurie Anderson, Gavin Bryars and (I've Had) The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing. Electronically phased abstractions of evocative beeps, growls and pulsating riff fragments also contribute to the evocative score that accompanies the trio's choreographed athletics. Backflips, somersaults and other kinds of gymnastic

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exertions become diverse expressions of "in-betweenness"; the liminal chasms between human connection and disconnection and the aching spaces of limbo resonating within the self.

Stage setting is the "square". A malleable conception that is the squareness of the room itself with its purpose-built surround of seating and large squared mat in the centre.

Lighting projections of smaller grids are changeable, multiple realities -- the beach, swimming pool, arena, bed, prison -- or else a metaphorical abstraction of the confinement and constraint of sexual and emotional intimacy.

One of the most effective and striking segments was when the illumination created shadowy, crisscrossed, cage-like meshing which served as an angular enclosure for McGuffin and Grant's ritualistic dance of interlocking codependence.

There are no hula hoops, juggling memorabilia or scaffolded climbing frames constructed from chairs; the primary circus legacy is a free-floating cradle suspended from the ceiling. Physical routines from this apparatus create new spatial dimensions as in turn each acrobat is dramatically hoisted into the air. The device is a vehicle for some scarily daring, virtuosic and highly synchronized aerial routines between performers.

At a few points, the pace sagged and some scenes did not gel within the overall concept. Nevertheless the skill level, gymnastic eloquence and conceptual intention was inspiring and thought-provoking, and clearly stirred the audience.

WEBSITE

http://www.rocknrollcircus.com/shows.php?id=1