What are we calling you? Good question, circus correspondent.
Like that, that's awesome.
From the Australian. This is the Front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Every so often a crazy assignment pops up in our newsroom. In this case, it was to join cirqu de Sela for the day and pull off some crazy acrobatics without breaking any bones.
There was only one journo for the.
Job, Biancha far Marcus, who's one of those truly multi talented twenty somethings who can do just about anything. Bianca's a filmmaker and a video editor. She's a beautiful writer and a sharply analytical, thoughtful creative. Oh and she's also an ultra fit recreational ballerina. Today we're running away to the circus with Biancha. How did you end up at sirk disilay?
Okay, So this is a very very good question because it all centers around the fact that our arts editor Tim Douglas, good friend of the show, end of the Circus and.
Of the Circus, his own dark history at the circus.
Yes, his own green haired past. He just emailed me, He's like, would you like to do this? And I said yes, of course, and he's like, good, I think you have a strong core and you actually could, which is an enormous compliment because I don't think I've done
a sit up in the past five years. So I waltzed in and it coincides with the Sydney run of Circusilay's Lucier, which is part magical realism, part fantastical retelling, and this gorgeous sort of illusory love letter to Mexico and the history of the country, all of its cultural elements woven in, from animals to artistry. You know, it's
not just two hours of the incredible stunts. It is two hours of these incredible stunts, but they all feel into this gorgeous narrative, and you watch the peaks and troughs of like these incredible emotional moments. There's these beautiful numbers I believe they call them in a dodge or in a dag yo, where it's more of like a slower group acrobatic performance, and that's when I was watching this girl be swung around like a robe and then thrown into the arms of someone in ping ponged across
the other side of the performance hall. Then it comes into this accelerating moment where it's energetic again, and it's meant to kind of manifest this gorgeous history of a country that it has, like this kaleidoscopic culture, but they just bring it to this other worldly level and they think it truly sets apart their comprehension of circus artistry.
I'm glad to see you all in one piece.
You posted a video on your Instagram of yourself leaping through a hoop into a forward role on a mat and then managing to come out of it without a fractured vertebrae.
How did you know you could pull it off?
I had no common evidence, And that is what I would like to stress to everyone is that there is no athleticism, no prior skills you can retain to prepare you for that. They just said, look, you just need to stretch your neck for thirty seconds, tuck it in and try to avoid hitting your head on the way in.
And I was absolutely terrified.
I did say, I haven't been off the ground more than my height in probably the last twenty years.
So it was good fun.
That was great.
Yeah.
Sexus Alay is forty years old.
It's quite remarkable. It's a Canadian circus but what's different about it? Why is it a different kind of circus?
What said circus lay apart from I guess you know, your more conventional circus, is that they have perpetually been what we call now a modern circus, so devoid of any animals. They are very anti that, and they make up for it in this beautiful way and kind of pay homage to this sort of complex history of animal
performers by having the most fantastical costumes. I was amazed that in the middle of this rehearsal space they had all these animal heads around, like there's some kind of deities of the Cirq Disilay just watching them, and they're like, no, we actually perform acrobatics in them.
They're quite heavy. I was like, there's no way.
I mean, I was scared about breaking my neck being five centimeters off the ground.
These people are coming in with.
Like ten kilo cheetah print heads and horses and everything. That's what I love about Cirq Disilay is that they have completely transcended that galling stereotype and had the most impressive reimagination of what circus can be.
An art form that you and I both love is ballet. M Absolutely Ballerina said to me once that the test of great ballet is that it should be art, not acrobatics. Movements should be considered and should be part of the kind of artistic story. And if dancers kind of or choreographers try too hard to just be athletic and kind of show off their prowess, they're losing the point, losing
the art. Circus is something where we expect some level of acrobatics, and in cert Disilay it's certainly exceptional acrobatics, but they have added on a level of artistry or almost a spiritual aspect to it, that we don't really expect from circus.
Do we, No, not at all.
I mean with Cirk Disilay, I think the artistry comes from this amalgamation of different forms. They pay respect to visual arts to music. You have a whole little den which probably gets to about one hundred and forty degrees as whe all the musicians sit underneath the stage, and they are the only live musicians in any art form that actually respond to the performers rather than the performers responding to them.
Another aspect of the show is that the whole thing is.
Drenched in over five thousand liters of water the entire time, which, again I stress cannot think of a more questionable combination. I mean, I nearly slipped.
In the shower on my way over there.
It was embarrassing enough, but it's such a magical thing to see because it has combined all these elements that are akin to the arts, but also it's devoid of if I can say this as a fan of many snobby art forms, it is devoid of that snobbery where there is no elitism other than the physical part, because it just has such an embrace to every single other art form that they engage with to bring the show together.
Did you learn much about their exercise and diet regime? You know how they get these bodies that are able to do these incredible things.
Yes, I did so.
I spoke to the two Australian performers, and Nathan Smiles, who is very adequately named because the man does not stop grinning. He tells me that I work on this philosophy where they want the show to be the easiest part of the day. They do six hours of strength and conditioning at a minimum, broken into two exercise lights.
Then they do rehearsals in which they not only go through elements of the routine that they'd like to refine for that night's performance, but then they throw in a period about an hour where they just practice tricks that they'd love to work into a future show, things that they typically work on for two years before they even make it to the crowd.
Coming up the story of one audience member, a little Australian girl whose dream was to be on that big stage. Circus has a dark history as well as being this art form that's four children primarily, but is capable of making everybody feel like a child in level. Really, there's I think an association for us in our culture of circus as an energy place on the margins and a history of animal and mistreatment, a history of performers being mistreated,
and of these people as kind of fringe dwellers. SPUs Alay has turned that art form into this phenomenally successful, very mainstream, financially lucrative production. What do you think is the balance there between honoring I suppose, the heritage of circus while being in what sounds like a very functional and happy environment.
You know, when I first told people I was going to the circus. They immediately said, well, you've always been a clown when you don't wax.
You're the bearded lady, and.
Oh that is harsh.
It's finally good to see you joining the freak show. So it was like that immediate connotation which does spring to mind, and it's so fascinating because it doesn't translate whatsoever. And I think what blows my mind with surp Disilay and how they kind of do walk that fine line between the legacy and the heritage is that it is so alady and driven and they have this unique capacity to be able to translate their show. I mean, the
show has been viewed by four million people. I think they said something like forty different countries they've traveled to in the forty year history, which is unbelievable.
But it is entirely rooted in this idea of like, we.
Are entertainers first, we are performers second, and we fuse that into the legacy of how we want people to perceive this act and it still relies solely on whether they know that people are going to be smiling or they're going to be moved, or they're going to feel emotional, They're going to feel connected, like it is very much a fuel process that they cannot perform if they do not feel like they're making people smile. And it's it makes me emotional because I was speaking to one of
the performers. His name's Helena Murdon, incredible acrobatch is a former diver, did every single sport associated with heights you can imagine. And she was telling me she saw her first sex dissilay show when she was seven in her hometown of Brisbane. She was so enamored and she had this, you know, like this childlike innocence to her. She was like, well, I can do a backflip, so surely I can be
part of this show. And it actually fueled her to do that and she celebrated this year twenty years on performing on the same stage she first witnessed as a child and completed that circle of magic. And to her, it was this idea that I witnessed a spectacle in a dream come to life before me, I didn't witness the show, and then.
I made it happen.
That's very movie I know.
Oh oh my gosh.
I was driven to tears mainly because of that story, but also because my back was killing me at that point.
Well, now I want you to teach me how to do a forward role.
Yes, absolutely, you got to tuck your neck in and then hope for the best.
Thanks, thank you.
To get tickets to Serk to Sola, just search Lutzia. That's lu Zia. You can read Bianchor's story and watch her inaction right now in The Australian's Review section. At The Australian, we publish high quality video journalism every day about everything from politics to wine and the deeply personal stories from our health journos. Bianca is one of the people behind the lens. She's part of our talented team
of video experts. To check out their work, search for The Australian on YouTube, or go to Be Australian dot com dot au slash video