Australian Circus and Physical Theatre Association::July 2007 Newsletter

If you would like anything added to the August Newsletter please email details to ACAPTA. We will make every effort to include it but to be certain that there is sufficient notice contact us 6 to 8 weeks prior to your event.

A lovely slide-show tribute to Reg Bolton, with photographs from his funeral
last year can be found by visiting www.thewest.com.au and scrolling down to the bottom right of the home page to 'multimedia galleries'
It's called 'Reg Bolton - The Final Ovation'

The Great Gondos present "Tastes Funny"
- a pocket-sized mix of circus, sideshow and new vaudeville combining comedy, drama, action AND romance!

Mr Gondo decides to create a look-a-like dummy, in order to test the true love of the very beautiful Mrs Gondo. When Mr Gondo discovers that she has fallen for the look-a like, he sets out to undo the experiment and win her back using charm, wit and a forbidden fruit. How could it hurt when it tastes so good? Absurd acrobatics, mind-blowing body bending, a breathtaking tango for three and a penchant for ridiculously good pranks, all combine to undo an experiment gone horribly wrong.

August 3 & 4 at Chapel off Chapel - 12 Little Chapel Street, Prahran VIC
Bookings - 03 8290 7000
To go into the draw to win a free double pass email us with your contact details and put "Tastes Funny" in the subject line.

The list of performers and workshops for the Melbourne Juggling Convention continues to grow. Currently listed on the convention website are:
Performers
Earl Shatford
Raphael Bennet-Daly
Sacha Fawkes
Mark Douglass
Dan - Bender
Mr. Om
Ivan Smith & Shaun Plumtree
Terry The Great
Workshops currently registered for the convention:
Diabolo
Twirling Beginner
Twirling Advanced
Contact Beginner
Contact Intermediate and Advanced
Passing
Stealing/sharing
Hula hoop
3 ball creativity
4 ball showers/boxes
Balls Beginner
3 Ball pattern/transitions Intermediate and Advanced
MAD - Renegade (for those in the renegade)
Note that this list is somewhat subject to change.
Come September, some might not be able to happen, and others might spontaneously just happen.

For those of you coming from afar, a Jugglers Accommodation Discount has been secured at Collingwood Backpackers, a stones-throw away from the college - look under 'Accommodation' at http://www.juggling-club.com/mjc/location.php for full details.

Melbourne Juggling Convention 2007 is being held at Collingwood College from 21st to 23rd September. This community circus event is not limited to juggling – there will be diabolo, devil sticks, poi/staff twirling, hula-hoop, contact juggling and much more. Workshops in all the above will be held throughout the convention, at beginner, intermediate and advanced skill levels.

All are invited to come and share the excellent facilities we have available, to learn, teach and most important of all, have fun with circus!

On Friday evening there will be a Renegade Show (Open Stage) – a juggling convention tradition – where anyone may get up to perform something in front of a very friendly audience. There are no limits here! There may be anything from telling the latest joke to trying out a new trick or whole routine!

On Saturday night there will be a professional ‘Public Show’ held in the college’s own 250-seat theatre. This show is open to the public, and will feature high-quality circus acts from around the world.

‘The Juggling Olympics’ is another convention favourite, being held on the Sunday afternoon. Jugglers battle it out to win various circus-related games – high-diabolo throw, long distance club-passing, 3-ball gladiators, to name a few! Fun, and laughs guaranteed every time!

The convention has had fantastic support from the community – a big thank you goes to:Little Devils Recreation, Mouleprint, JuggleArt, RUCCIS, Melbourne University Juggling Club and JuggleJam. We hope to see you there!!!

National Youth Circus Day 2007 Registration Now Open!!!
Information Sheet
Registration Form
Start planning now for the inaugural National Youth Circus Day! Youth Circus is one of the fastest growing arenas for youth recreation and expression. As a way of celebrating this fact, the first National Youth Circus Day is set to take place on September 13, 2007, a date chosen to coincide with the second Catapult Festival, a biennial festival with a focus on circus and physical theatre and showcasing youth groups.

National Youth Circus Day will be a series of events presented across Australia by Youth Circuses, School Groups and other programs incorporating circus skills and promoted to the wider community.

Get involved! Organisations with Youth Circus programs - from schools to professional companies, from community groups to established Youth Circuses - are being asked to plan an event to join in with the day. The event may be as simple as a training session open to the public’s view or as large as an opening night for a major season.

The thrust of the day is to promote the benefits to youth of participating in a Circus program, benefits that extend far beyond the obvious personal and social growth parameters most often reported on. However, the day will also be an opportunity to present the role played by Youth Circus companies in the community and the role played by ACAPTA in supporting those companies across Australia. It will also give the young people participating the opportunity to feel connected to their peers throughout the country.

If your interest is sparked already, please contact ACAPTA on circusday@acapta.net to ensure your organisation is on the lists.
Or write to -

ACAPTA
Office 20 / 5 Blackwood Street
North Melbourne
VIC 3051
If you know of another organisation with a Youth Circus program forward them the link and encourage them to contact ACAPTA soon … the more the merrier they say!

Launceston Sept 22
Melbourne Sept 25 & 26
Adelaide Sept 29
Perth Sept 30
Darwin Oct 2
Cairns Oct 4
Brisbane Oct 5
Sydney Oct 6

Audition applications close September 14 - go to the NICA website for audition details and application forms.

Old circus kid shows off the fun
from the Sydney Morning Herald, July 5 2007

Note: Sonny's exhibit is currently on in California but he welcomes enquiries from Australia and would love to have it on display over here.

Sonny King's memories of his Australian childhood inspired him to re-create it, writes Gerard Wright.

It's been a crowded life, between the two marriages and the three children, the Emmy award, the trip by motor scooter from Naples to London with the girlfriend who looked like Julie Christie, the homeland left behind then rediscovered.
For all that, there was one chapter in particular that remained etched in Sonny King's mind, of the empty backroads and small towns of Australia in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when his father, Merv's, creation was a lifeline to places where visual entertainment was all but unheard of. Through the wonder of memory, that chapter remained vivid over 50 years, before it was made whole and multidimensional again, in a Los Angeles museum.

Merv King knew nothing but circus life, an orphan given over to St Leon's Circus when he was six or seven years old. He stood astride horses, he tamed lions, he defied gravity. In time, he founded his own circus, Silvers, and then made the wrenching choice between marriage and family, or the only life he had ever known.

King chose the circus, and sent his boy, Sonny, back to Sydney. Sonny rejoined the circus from time to time, and travelled with it for three years between the ages of eight and 11, as the boss's son, and an occasional performer in the bullfight act.

He is not inclined to give his younger self the benefit of the doubt. He was, he thinks, "probably a little spoilt bastard".

And now Sonny King wanders among those memories, through the clutter that will soon be a show, on the second floor of one of the more modest enterprises on Wilshire Boulevard's Museum Mile, and tells the stories that come with these models. One is of Viggo Christensen - his circus name was Pao, his wife's performing name was Mai - a Danish juggler, who balances on a unicycle, the small illuminated light bulbs attached to pieces of wire providing the airborne illusion of moving balls. King gently straightens a bulb and its attachment. "I have to stop messing with this stuff," he murmurs.

King, 67, has made a good life for himself in Beverly Hills; at the official opening of his display at the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum, he could identify film directors, rock musicians and political commentators as friends and honoured guests at the unveiling of this monument to his father and his life.

What they came to see was a collection of 13 dioramas, scale models of Silvers Circus scenes, meticulous and remarkable in their detail, from the riggers clinging to the big top like cartoon cameos on the edge of the frame, to the nuns sitting demurely in the front row of the audience.

The models were made from wood and quick-drying polymer clay. The first took five weeks of seven- to eight-hour days. Another followed, and the favourable responses of friends encouraged King, retired from his company, with an Emmy award in 1982 for graphic design in television, to stay with his task.

"It's a little rough looking," he says. "It's realistic in a way, but it's a fantasy circus. That's one of the confusions I have about this stuff: if it's a toy, or art. I never set out to do this as you see it now. It was just reliving a few memories and see what I could do with them."

That process of transforming recollection into a subtle, three-dimensional image was an occasionally painful one. "You get a little upset, occasionally," King says. "They're all gone. You find yourself reliving it a bit. There's nothing like this, today."

It was a mixed audience of the young and the once-young who trooped upstairs for the official Saturday night opening. What was striking about their reactions was that, almost uniformly, they stopped, stooped in front of each scene, and looked. And looked.

Nigel Mogg, the bass guitarist for the English rock band the Quireboys, pressed his nose against the glass fronting each scene, and stared. Later he told King that he had been inspired to acquire a new look, and would henceforth perform in the riding jodhpurs modelled by Merv King.

As much or more than the action in the ring, it is the faces and postures of the audience that are magnetic. "That's the key to the whole thing," King says. "The people who used to show up in the circus out in the bush were hilarious. They didn't have any TV, so this was their only entertainment."

In one model, a clown applies make-up in front of a mirror, his shoulders pale, his arms showing the high-tide mark of an outdoor labourer's sunburn. Another is the scene from backstage, with a dozen figures viewing the act inside the tent through an open flap. In the corner, a clown sits in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, reading a newspaper, a dog sitting before him.

Each scene has its own story, some obvious, others once known only to King. The backstage montage also represents a turning point in three lives. It shows a striking woman in a white dress with red polka dots. Her shoes are fashionable high heels and a shawl is flung over her shoulders. A red flower is pinned to her dark hair. She is walking away from the tent with her head high.

This was Phyllis Perry, Merv King's wife and Sonny's mother. Sonny's wife, Katherine Reback, is a scriptwriter and former Clinton White House speechwriter. She offered a caption: "My mother left the circus, aged 23. My father, knowing nothing else, stayed with it."

"It's vivid," King says. "Vivid. I can remember every detail. I dunno, maybe I was very observant. At the time, it didn't seem very fascinating, but in later life, life becomes duller and the recollection is almost in contrast to what goes on today. My own children didn't experience what I've experienced. At the time, everything just stuck."

Merv King sold his circus - prematurely, he later admitted - in 1953, in the expectation that television would take over Silvers' market. He died in 2003, in Sydney, aged 96 or 97. He was about 58, and married again, to fellow Silvers performer Emily Kear, with another son, Greg, when Sonny left Australia by ship in 1965, never to return.

The single scene that became the distillation of King's three-year circus adventure was created soon after Merv's death.
Was he close to his father?

"I think I was, but I didn't see much of him before I left," King says. "It's all for him - you always try to impress your parents. He was a good guy, very kind. People used to say, it was terrible, being given away to the circus, and he said: 'No, I loved it. It was like a big holiday."'

Joel Kaufman was visiting from New York, and was delighted to be diverted down memory lane.

"There's so many details to it," he says. "The faces of the audience, the men in the dressing room. You can see hundreds of different stories in that one little piece. I think it's the detail. The more you look, the more you find - the things that are funny or poignant."

King smiled; part of his life had become immortal, or at least, lasting. "I'm doing this because TV has no shelf life, and I wanted to do something that would be here after I'm gone," he says. "All of the things one does for TV just end up as a big piece of tape."
www.thecircusiscomingtotown.com

The second international year “ World Circus Geneva 2010 ” is in preparation for 2010.
A jury of professionals of the spectacles of street theatre, Puppet Circus theatre, Circus Model, Music and circus will choose the companies which will be present at the international Festival “ World Circus Geneva 2010”.
Visit us : World Circus

Acts are being sought.
Big tops are allowed as well as shows presented in theatres, street, factories and improbable spaces.
We seek also spectacles in First preview.
A complete file with DVD must be sent to the central seat at the following address:
World Circus Geneva 2010
Po.Box 7688
CH. - 1002 Lausanne
Switzerland

The files will have to reach us before October 30, 2008.
Beyond this date, the files will be refused.
The files without DVD will be also refused. (We ask DVD of good quality and for a complete file of the demonstration suggested).
The files will not be returned.
No correspondence will be exchanged between the groups during the selection period.

Arts Hub have kindly given us permission to 'print' a copy of an article that appeared on their site. If you aren't already a member of Arts Hub - it is well worth joining. The Arts Hub site includes photos with this article as well as recent stories about Azaria Universe (Burlesque Hour & The Candy Butchers) and Matt Wilson (Circus Oz).

A teasing spectacle
by Moira Finucane
Arts Hub
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Because women’s physical safety is still connected to their sexuality and their expression of their own sexuality, we see women’s performance of burlesque – at its core - as part of a continuing exploration of sexuality and liberation.
Moira Finucane has been performing ‘burlesques macabre’ for over ten years now – creating, with collaborator Jackie Smith, intimate theatrical spectacles where variety, fairy tale, cabaret, the gothic, and burlesque are melded into indelible visions of gender, power, violence and desire.

Finucane and Smith’s work in this provocative and rich area has been presented in major festivals, cabarets, clubs and theatres around the world. Their burlesques have nearly caused a riot in a London club, have brought the house down from Edinburgh to Sweden, from the Opera House to Tokyo, from Brighton to Brisbane to Brixton and beyond. They have been gaped at Australia's National Gallery, been gossiped about by Hong Kong taxi drivers, been wildly souvenired by Scottish fans, and forced critics to declare “you'll never look at food in quite the same way". They have been the subject of university lectures, cultural conniptions, doctoral dissertations and audience acclaim.

Their full length show The Burlesque Hour - described by Finucane and Smith as a “revolution in a chocolate box” - has taken Australia’s most astonishing and edgy performance around femininity and sexuality and packaged it in an accessible, sophisticated and cutting edge salon, where it has been embraced by contemporary theatregoing audiences, mainstream audiences, queer audiences and audiences that don’t usually attend theatre.

The Burlesque Hour features Moira Finucane, the queen of cabaret bizarre; Moscow circus-trained circus and burlesque star Azaria Universe; Japanese shock cabaret artiste Yumi Umiumare – from Japan’s seminal butoh company DaiRakudakan, a wild-cat amongst the pigeons. Every season features luminous guest artistes, including - to date - the legendary Australian variety star an original Tivoli dame, Toni Lamond; iconic gender-in-performance artist Maude Davey; British live artist and cult cabaret legend Ursula Martinez, and the all-dancing, all-dangerous nunchaku go-go girls The Town Bikes.

Selling out to standing ovations and critical acclaim at the Sydney Opera House, in three seasons in Melbourne; and multiple sell out seasons in Adelaide; and in its first international tour, in Edinburgh 2005, under the velvet canopy of the 1930’s Belgian Mirror Tent La Gayola – The Burlesque Hour was hailed as “the hottest temptation of the festival” (Scotland on Sunday). In less than three years, The Burlesque Hour has been seen by over 17,000 people.

In June and July 2007, Finucane and Smith return to Melbourne to present Burlesque Hour MORE! A return of favorite acts from the original, as well as a cracking mixture of new acts and guest stars.

Moira Finucane from Finucane and Smith reflects on burlesque, its meaning, and its potential to stir the cultural pot...
Burlesque! A Little Insight
The word burlesque first started its life in the 1600s - meaning a mockery, a parody, a grotesquery or exaggeration. There were burlesque operas called burlettas, there was burlesque fiction; a pompous and overblown insight into the vanities and conceits of daily life. Nowadays when we think of burlesque, we often think of tassles n tease, but there is an extraordinary history that weaves women’s performance of both their femininity and their sexuality and sensuality together with a sense of agency, of subversion, of cheek and sass – it’s memorable, funny, sometimes extremely transgressive, and often much more powerful than you might imagine.A Walk Down Memory Lane…

Where else but in the variety world of music hall, vaudeville and burlesque of the past could an audience in one evening thrill to a circus act, marvel at the performing dogs, laugh at the comics, blush at the scantily clad show girls, and be brought to tears by the delivery of a classic monologue by an Actress in the “front of curtain piece”. And the punters would queue around the block for it.

Burlesque itself has a much more saucy and some would say sleazy reputation than the other forms of variety. It often featured strippers and carnival side show performers. For many performers wanting to get into the alluring world of showbiz, burlesque was the bottom rung. But for others, female performers in particular, who were interested in performing and exploring something outside of the prescribed strict social mores, burlesque was an opportunity to work, create, and pursue their ambitions to make entertainment. While only a few managed to break out into the mainstream, the most famous probably being stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque became a haven for alternative, often transgressive performance. This doesn’t mean it was all peaches and cream for the performers, dancers and show girls of the burlesque halls. Mostly, it was a damned hard slog, with the moral majority looking down in judgment at the wickedness of chorus girls and strippers, and the audience members being mostly male, and not necessarily there for the art

Female artists using a burlesque sensibility – the mock, the parodic, the grotesque, and the exaggerated – overlaid their presentations of alluring sexuality with wry wit and a razor edged intelligence that we still remember and admire today. The likes of Mae West, who came to embody a kind of mature, knowing and very risqué sexuality in her forties, Marlene Dietrich who caused a sensation with her cross dressing and her ambiguous allure, Marie Lloyd, queen of the music halls in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the English cross dresser Vesta Tilley, loved by all the gentlemen and the ladies, and our recent stars with their showgirl sensibilities stuffed firmly in their cheek like Dolly Parton - who famously said in response to an interviewer asking her what she thought about people calling her a dumb blonde, “I ain’t dumb and I ain’t blonde either”.

The fantastic form of variety still has so much to offer – and in the contemporary context of The Burlesque Hour, images of female and femininity in particular are now owned by the female performers themselves. They can still be transgressive, subversive, satirical, alluring, intellectual, funny, outrageous, political, dangerous or just plain silly - the beauty of burlesque is you can take your pick which. It is, as they say in the classics, something for everyone and drinks at the bar!

The Contemporary Context
Jackie and I have seen burlesques or all shapes and sizes around the world, and yes, it is the first world that we are talking about here… more on that below. And whilst they occasionally walk away with that strange taste so undeniably associated with a “hmmm that tastes like exploitation to me”, most often what they see are women, mostly young women, but certainly not exclusively so, experimenting with their own sense of themselves their own power, their sexuality, their sense of what it is to be a woman, and their freedom.
What’s the connection? How are sexuality and freedom so interconnected for women, and why in societies where women are already “free” and “liberated” is burlesque having such a major boom.

We live in conservative times and, despite the successful work of many women and men to promote equality, the oppression of women is still a reality, even in our “enlightened west”. In Australia alone one in three women have experienced violence or the serious threat on violence in their adult lives. One quarter of young people have witnessed physical abuse against their mother or step-mother. One in five Australian woman have been sexually assaulted, and women are ten times more likely than men to be so.

Women are still struggling to gain control over their own bodies and the expression of their sexuality and sexual identity. There is a very real connection between the high levels of violence and sexual violence against women and girl children, and how women's physical and sexual rights and presence are viewed on the streets every day and every night.

What’s that got to do with risqué performance around women’s sexuality? Everything. From civil rights to anti-racism, from class critiques to activism around gay and lesbian rights - wherever people cannot pursue happiness, love and the expression of sexuality without being punished they jack up, they protest, and often they find witty ways of doing it – from Pride and Prejudice to Pride Marches, people that want liberation, for themselves and for others, are going to find interesting and often thrilling ways to express it.

Burlesque can be powerful stuff, and is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. It doesn’t necessarily all make for good theatre; as with all cultural phenomena, there is the good the bad and the ugly out there. But because women’s physical safety is still connected to their sexuality and their expression of their own sexuality, we see women’s performance of burlesque - at its core - as part of a continuing exploration of sexuality and liberation.

New burlesque and the burlesque hour
Burlesque is now a much bigger arena than what is often associated with it - it encompasses many artforms and styles. The new burlesque as it's called often harks back to a retro American burlesque feel - it's 40-50s fishnets and corsets, tassels n tease, and some of it's absolutely gorgeous.

The Burlesque Hour owes little to that American retro feel, it is a very different beast.
The Burlesque Hour emerged out of over a decade’s work in the area of gender and sexuality in performance and Finucane & Smith’s exposure to contemporary burlesque, variety, vaudeville and cabaret around Australia and internationally. Much of this work sits in queer, underground or very specific performance arts contexts and has had little exposure to any mainstream or even mainstream contemporary performance audiences. The vision for The Burlesque Hour was to create a gorgeous, respectful and accessible salon context within which these works could be seen and appreciated by all kinds of audiences – mainstream, cutting edge, straight, gay, young old, theatre goers and non theatre goers - for the exciting cutting edge, liberating and thrilling qualities that they have. Finucane and Smith’s work prioritises the audience, it is our very firm belief that audiences are by and large intelligent and open; if they are taken care of and treasured you can take them anywhere. It is part of our political mission not to keep “cutting edge” in the cutting edge or underground forums but to bring them to as broad an audience as possible. Everyone, we believe, should be able to see and enjoy work that is liberating, confronting, exciting provocative, challenging; not just a select few.

The concept of The Burlesque Hour is a salon showcase of some of Australia’s hottest exponents of gender in performance and contemporary burlesque. Set in a salubrious salon environment, The Burlesque Hour engulfs its audience in a sensibility that is pure old-fashioned burlesque/variety/music hall. On this historical base, The Burlesque Hour layers provocative, exciting works that shift the debate about gender, femininity and sexuality, and include works rarely seen by any mainstream or even contemporary performance audiences.

The Burlesque Hour represents a coming together and a celebration of performance innovation, and the cultures that have encouraged it. It reflects queer performance culture; women’s performance culture – from The Women’s Season at Melbourne Fringe to Drag Kings (women’s cross dressing performance night) and queer club performance nights such as Libido Unbound and cLUB bENT; and contemporary arts culture. It is a work that has its genesis in the queer and fringe theatre cultures of Australia, both of which are artistically and politically vibrant.

The Burlesque Hour is unique – it pecks the eyes out of such a wild and eclectic vein of influences, ranging from traditional Japanese dance, to Victorian melodrama, to punk performance art, to old style carnival, side show and freak show, and melds them into contemporary visions of gender, violence, power and desire. It's an explosive mix of vaudeville, carnival, showgirl, magic realism, music hall, the gothic, dance, Japanese butoh and performance art - it's old style, but wildly contemporary, it twists the artform until it screams for more.

Moira Finucane is one of Australia's most unique and celebrated performance artists. Her collaboration with award winning theatre creator and director Jackie Smith (Patrick White Playwright Award) has created the signature work of Finucane & Smith. Intimate theatrical spectacles where cabaret, fairy tale, the gothic, variety and burlesque are melded into indelible visions of gender, power, violence and desire. Producing over forty short and full length performance seasons for major arts festivals, theatres, galleries and clubs around Australia and internationally, Finucane & Smith's work has delighted and disturbed audiences and critics with sell-out seasons around the world and in Australia at a myriad of major festivals and venues. Their work has been nominated for 16 Australian Theatre Awards, and won 9, including 7 prestigious Green Room Awards for Most Outstanding Cabaret, Best Design, Best Direction, and Most Innovative Use of Form. For more details, visit their website.
E: info@moirafinucane.com
W: http://www.moirafinucane.com

We originally intended to include details of the latest Burlesque Hour season but it sold out almost immediately!

Heavenly Beauty regional tour
Chinese acrobatic troupe Heavenly Beauty will have audiences on the edge of their seats as they witness some of the most beautiful and complex acrobatic feats.
Be astounded by what the human body can do!

2 Aug - Taree Manning Entertainment Centre (02) 6592 5466
4 Aug - Narrabri Crossing Theatre (02) 6792 4654
10 Aug-Toowoomba Empire Theatre 1 300 655 299
12 Aug-Caloundra – The Events Centre (07) 5491 4240
14 Aug-Bundaberg Moncrieff Theatre (07) 4153 1985
16 Aug-Gladstone Entertainment Centre (07) 4787 8472
17 Aug-Charters Towers – The World Theatre (07) 4787 8472
20 Aug-Ayr Burdekin Theatre (07) 4783 9880
28 Aug-Colac Otway Performing Arts & Cultural Centre (03) 5232 2077
30 Aug-Warrnambool Entertainment Centre (03) 5559 4999

National Institute of Circus Arts and Melbourne International Arts Festival present:

DiVino
Join incredibly talented artists from the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) for their Festival debut. Directed by Italy’s own Valeria Campo, DiVino combines circus, music, theatre and dance in magical show for the whole family.
DiVino takes its inspiration from Federico Fellini’s recently published script The Journey of G. Mastorna, which tells the story of a group of young performers on their way to the most important audition of their lives. Forced to land in an unknown country, reminiscent of Fellini’s Italy, the stranded travellers arrive in a piazza. This piazza becomes the place where dreams, memories, nightmares, comedy and pathos, circus and life collide. Director Valeria Campo, internationally renowned for her commedia dell’arte work and training methods for actors, was inspired by the youth and creativity of the NICA students to develop a chorus of characters reminiscent of the teenagers in Fellini’s film Amarcord.

DiVino is a celebration of the eclectic imagination, an extravagant circus performance full of colour, movement and luscious imagery. This Festival season is the first in NICA’s remarkable new state of the art circus training and performance space.

Credits
Director Valeria Campo
Designer Richard Roberts
Musical Director Peter Farnan
Lighting Designer Phil Lethlean
Production Manager Wayne Appleton

Melba Spiegeltent Debut Show: La Soirée
Opens at the Northcote Town Hall on August 15th

Producer Frank Gasser’s global circus family has operated across Europe and the United States for a hundred years. Throughout his career, he has performed 21 circus acts, including Flying Trapeze for Prince Rainier and the King of Thailand.
Director Doug Tremlett started out as a magician and comedian, and grew to become one of Australia’s leading artistic authorities. He was Creative Director for Melbourne’s 2006 Commonwealth Games Ceremonies, and received the Prime Minister's Centenary Medal for his legendary Peoplescape project.

Every member of La Soirée’s ensemble cast has won international awards for excellence beyond compare.
Aerial Acrobat Christy Shelper was a member of Cirque du Soleil's ‘Quidam,’ with which she performed her now famous ‘Cloud Swing’ act across Europe. She also performed the feature aerial role in Melbourne’s 2006 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, and choreographed the opening aerial segment for the 18th Arabian Gulf Cup.
Actor and Musical Comedian Jesse Griffin has won too many ‘Best Comedy Show’ and ‘Best Film’ awards to mention. He is an original member of The 4 Noels, and his solo career as country bumpkin musical philosopher, Wilson Dixon, has developed an international cult following.
Wes Snelling wrote and performed the musical TRASH, which won Best Original Musical at Melbourne Fringe. He now intoxicates cabaret haunts as Tina, an ageing Diva hanging on by a velvet string. She may not always know where she is, but the gin has only sharpened her wit, and her honey-dripped voice is truly divine.
Sam Angelico, magician and mime, was named World Champion of Comedy Magic by the International Federation of Magical Societies. He performed his first Spiegeltent show 22-years ago, and numerous international tours later has become a modern-day Spiegeltent veteran.
Christopher Gregory celebrates his 30th anniversary as a performer of physical theatre with La Soirée. Best know as Christof!!, an intense and unpredictable clown, he has won three “Best Comedy Act” awards for performances in London’s Covent Garden, Wales’ Cardiff Summer Festival and Sydney’s International Street Performing Festival.
Gymnast and Slap Stick performer, DJ, uses astounding physical strength to turn any rope, wall or obstacle into a performance prop. He is a member of Dislocate, an award-winning aerial acrobatic theatre company. He is also a cast member of ‘Honour Bound,’ a shattering physical theatre set in Guantanamo Bay, which has won five Sydney Theatre Awards and six Green Room Awards to date.
Juggling luminary Hazel Bock has performed with Circus Quirkus, CIRCA and Circus Catharsis. Her French Maid character may be tidying up the audience, but she won’t be tidying up her act, as she explores her blossoming sexuality as a young French cliché.
La Soirée’s musical soul evolves every night, as characters develop new relationships with each other and with the audience. Its Musical Director, Justin Holland, is a multi-instrumentalist, choreographer and acrobat. He has performed with Meow Meow, toured with Downtown Brown, and in 2003 won The Green Room Award with The Dilapidated Diva for Best Cabaret Show. Together with musician and entertainer Jude Emmet, Justin musically breathes with the performers, ready to improvise at any moment.

La Soirée serves up bewilderment along with a decadent four-course meal. The menu draws on flavors from the European countries where the Spiegeltent first began her journey, in 1910. A “Trio of Duck” or “Rabbit” provide tastes of Belgium, Germany and Holland. While a Peach Melba desert, named after Dame Nellie Melba, reminds audiences of Melbourne’s own rich artistic heritage.

La Soirée opens for previews on August 15, and will run for a limited season of three months in Northcote Town Hall. Tickets are $110, which includes a luxurious meal, a glass of champagne, and some dangerous memories.

Following the show each evening will be a variety of separately ticketed late-night entertainment, including The Oxo Cubans, The Band Who Knew Too Much, and The Bedroom Philosopher.
Tickets can be purchased via www.themelbaspiegeltent.com.au

Note: The Melba Spiegeltent was formerly known as the Bacaladera and is not to be confused with The Famous Spiegeltent (owned by David Bates and home to La Clique) that has been a feature of the Arts Centre Forecourt in recent years.

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Circus Monoxide Big Top Regional NSW TOUR:
Sept 10-14: Bathurst - Catapault Youth Circus Arts Festival (presented by Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre)
Sept 15-23: Bathurst Season
Sept 24-30: Town tbc (hopefully a music festival in Windsor)
Oct 5-14: Wollongong Season (presented by the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre - Merrigong Theatre Fringe Season)
Oct 15-21: Paramatta Season (presented by Paramatta Riverside Theatres)
Other projects:
RichMix Series: monthly artist talks, master classes, works-in-progress showings. Contact Jane Davis, Monoxide Associate Director, to receive updates: jane@circusmonoxide.com.au / 02 4285 0701

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Participant registrations now open for Catapult 2007 - September 12-16 Catapult burst onto Australia’s art and cultural calendar on September 16-18, 2005 in a flurry of colour, energy and sheer circus and physical theatre talent. The second Catapult Festival is less than six months away and organisers are calling on youth circus and physical theatre troupes and their communities throughout the country to lend their support to ensure it’s even more spectacular than the first. To achieve this goal Catapult organisers are calling on the communities throughout the country to throw their support behind their local circus and physical theatre performers to ensure they’re at next year’s festival to make it bigger and better. Catapult Program Coordinator Stephen Champion strongly believes this festival is worthy of community backing. “Catapult is the first festival in Australia to showcase the skills of young circus and physical theatre performers and participants are welcome from across Australia and from abroad,” he said. “Another thing that makes Catapult unique is that it is not only a festival for young performers but also attracts some of the best adult professional performers currently practicing. Catapult organisers have observed that the interaction between these youth and adult performers is an inspiration to all participants regardless of their age or skill level.” Brewarrina Circus Project Coordinator Kate Reid, whose troupe shone at the inaugural Catapult Festival, knows first-hand what a magical experience the festival is for emerging circus and physical theatre performers. “Circus is a rapidly growing interest for young people across the country and creating an event such as Catapult, the only youth specific event of it’s kind in the country, provides a unique artistic vehicle for young people from very different backgrounds, to come together in an empowered way with a common language, and focus,” she said. “Catapult is providing an essential place where young people can grow artistically and culturally, can network with other like minded individuals and groups, and gain experiences outside of their local community, in which they can participate in an inspired, inclusive, instructive and constructive environment.” Festival dates: 12 – 16 September 2007 Registration forms, general festival details and copies of the draft program can be downloaded from the website: http://www.catapultfestival.com.au/ For more information contact Catapult Program Coordinator: Stephen Champion on 6333 6166 or email stephen.champion@bathurst.nsw.gov.au. Photos: (from top to bottom) • Kane Peterson • Brewarrina Circus Project - John Kirby,Ivy Dwyer • Circo Blurto from Katoomba • Brewarrina Circus Project - Warwick Williams, David Biles , Chris Barker, Anthony Murphy. • Cirkus Surreal from Bathurst • Popeyed - Rudi Mineur, Mark Sands, (photo by Jerry Boland)

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