Speaker 1: What are we calling you? Good question, circus correspondent.
Speaker 2: Like that, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is the Front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 3: Every so often a crazy assignment pops up in our newsroom.
Speaker 3: In this case, it was to join cirqu de Sela
Speaker 3: for the day and pull off some crazy acrobatics without
Speaker 3: breaking any bones.
Speaker 1: There was only one journo for the.
Speaker 3: Job, Biancha far Marcus, who's one of those truly multi
Speaker 3: talented twenty somethings who can do just about anything. Bianca's
Speaker 3: a filmmaker and a video editor. She's a beautiful writer
Speaker 3: and a sharply analytical, thoughtful creative. Oh and she's also
Speaker 3: an ultra fit recreational ballerina. Today we're running away to
Speaker 3: the circus with Biancha. How did you end up at
Speaker 3: sirk disilay?
Speaker 4: Okay, So this is a very very good question because
Speaker 4: it all centers around the fact that our arts editor
Speaker 4: Tim Douglas, good friend of the show, end of the
Speaker 4: Circus and.
Speaker 2: Of the Circus, his own dark history at the circus.
Speaker 4: Yes, his own green haired past. He just emailed me,
Speaker 4: He's like, would you like to do this? And I
Speaker 4: said yes, of course, and he's like, good, I think
Speaker 4: you have a strong core and you actually could, which
Speaker 4: is an enormous compliment because I don't think I've done
Speaker 4: a sit up in the past five years. So I
Speaker 4: waltzed in and it coincides with the Sydney run of
Speaker 4: Circusilay's Lucier, which is part magical realism, part fantastical retelling,
Speaker 4: and this gorgeous sort of illusory love letter to Mexico
Speaker 4: and the history of the country, all of its cultural
Speaker 4: elements woven in, from animals to artistry. You know, it's
Speaker 4: not just two hours of the incredible stunts. It is
Speaker 4: two hours of these incredible stunts, but they all feel
Speaker 4: into this gorgeous narrative, and you watch the peaks and
Speaker 4: troughs of like these incredible emotional moments. There's these beautiful
Speaker 4: numbers I believe they call them in a dodge or
Speaker 4: in a dag yo, where it's more of like a
Speaker 4: slower group acrobatic performance, and that's when I was watching
Speaker 4: this girl be swung around like a robe and then
Speaker 4: thrown into the arms of someone in ping ponged across
Speaker 4: the other side of the performance hall. Then it comes
Speaker 4: into this accelerating moment where it's energetic again, and it's
Speaker 4: meant to kind of manifest this gorgeous history of a
Speaker 4: country that it has, like this kaleidoscopic culture, but they
Speaker 4: just bring it to this other worldly level and they
Speaker 4: think it truly sets apart their comprehension of circus artistry.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to see you all in one piece.
Speaker 3: You posted a video on your Instagram of yourself leaping
Speaker 3: through a hoop into a forward role on a mat
Speaker 3: and then managing to come out of it without a
Speaker 3: fractured vertebrae.
Speaker 1: How did you know you could pull it off?
Speaker 4: I had no common evidence, And that is what I
Speaker 4: would like to stress to everyone is that there is
Speaker 4: no athleticism, no prior skills you can retain to prepare
Speaker 4: you for that. They just said, look, you just need
Speaker 4: to stretch your neck for thirty seconds, tuck it in
Speaker 4: and try to avoid hitting your head on the way in.
Speaker 2: And I was absolutely terrified.
Speaker 4: I did say, I haven't been off the ground more
Speaker 4: than my height in probably the last twenty years.
Speaker 2: So it was good fun.
Speaker 3: That was great.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sexus Alay is forty years old.
Speaker 3: It's quite remarkable. It's a Canadian circus but what's different
Speaker 3: about it? Why is it a different kind of circus?
Speaker 4: What said circus lay apart from I guess you know,
Speaker 4: your more conventional circus, is that they have perpetually been
Speaker 4: what we call now a modern circus, so devoid of
Speaker 4: any animals. They are very anti that, and they make
Speaker 4: up for it in this beautiful way and kind of
Speaker 4: pay homage to this sort of complex history of animal
Speaker 4: performers by having the most fantastical costumes. I was amazed
Speaker 4: that in the middle of this rehearsal space they had
Speaker 4: all these animal heads around, like there's some kind of
Speaker 4: deities of the Cirq Disilay just watching them, and they're like, no,
Speaker 4: we actually perform acrobatics in them.
Speaker 2: They're quite heavy. I was like, there's no way.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was scared about breaking my neck being
Speaker 4: five centimeters off the ground.
Speaker 2: These people are coming in with.
Speaker 4: Like ten kilo cheetah print heads and horses and everything.
Speaker 4: That's what I love about Cirq Disilay is that they
Speaker 4: have completely transcended that galling stereotype and had the most
Speaker 4: impressive reimagination of what circus can be.
Speaker 3: An art form that you and I both love is ballet.
Speaker 3: M Absolutely Ballerina said to me once that the test
Speaker 3: of great ballet is that it should be art, not acrobatics.
Speaker 3: Movements should be considered and should be part of the
Speaker 3: kind of artistic story. And if dancers kind of or
Speaker 3: choreographers try too hard to just be athletic and kind
Speaker 3: of show off their prowess, they're losing the point, losing
Speaker 3: the art. Circus is something where we expect some level
Speaker 3: of acrobatics, and in cert Disilay it's certainly exceptional acrobatics,
Speaker 3: but they have added on a level of artistry or
Speaker 3: almost a spiritual aspect to it, that we don't really
Speaker 3: expect from circus.
Speaker 2: Do we, No, not at all.
Speaker 4: I mean with Cirk Disilay, I think the artistry comes
Speaker 4: from this amalgamation of different forms. They pay respect to
Speaker 4: visual arts to music. You have a whole little den
Speaker 4: which probably gets to about one hundred and forty degrees
Speaker 4: as whe all the musicians sit underneath the stage, and
Speaker 4: they are the only live musicians in any art form
Speaker 4: that actually respond to the performers rather than the performers
Speaker 4: responding to them.
Speaker 2: Another aspect of the show is that the whole thing is.
Speaker 4: Drenched in over five thousand liters of water the entire time, which,
Speaker 4: again I stress cannot think of a more questionable combination.
Speaker 4: I mean, I nearly slipped.
Speaker 2: In the shower on my way over there.
Speaker 4: It was embarrassing enough, but it's such a magical thing
Speaker 4: to see because it has combined all these elements that
Speaker 4: are akin to the arts, but also it's devoid of
Speaker 4: if I can say this as a fan of many
Speaker 4: snobby art forms, it is devoid of that snobbery where
Speaker 4: there is no elitism other than the physical part, because
Speaker 4: it just has such an embrace to every single other
Speaker 4: art form that they engage with to bring the show together.
Speaker 3: Did you learn much about their exercise and diet regime?
Speaker 3: You know how they get these bodies that are able
Speaker 3: to do these incredible things.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did so.
Speaker 4: I spoke to the two Australian performers, and Nathan Smiles,
Speaker 4: who is very adequately named because the man does not
Speaker 4: stop grinning. He tells me that I work on this
Speaker 4: philosophy where they want the show to be the easiest
Speaker 4: part of the day. They do six hours of strength
Speaker 4: and conditioning at a minimum, broken into two exercise lights.
Speaker 4: Then they do rehearsals in which they not only go
Speaker 4: through elements of the routine that they'd like to refine
Speaker 4: for that night's performance, but then they throw in a
Speaker 4: period about an hour where they just practice tricks that
Speaker 4: they'd love to work into a future show, things that
Speaker 4: they typically work on for two years before they even
Speaker 4: make it to the crowd.
Speaker 3: Coming up the story of one audience member, a little
Speaker 3: Australian girl whose dream was to be on that big stage.
Speaker 3: Circus has a dark history as well as being this
Speaker 3: art form that's four children primarily, but is capable of
Speaker 3: making everybody feel like a child in level. Really, there's
Speaker 3: I think an association for us in our culture of
Speaker 3: circus as an energy place on the margins and a
Speaker 3: history of animal and mistreatment, a history of performers being mistreated,
Speaker 3: and of these people as kind of fringe dwellers. SPUs
Speaker 3: Alay has turned that art form into this phenomenally successful,
Speaker 3: very mainstream, financially lucrative production. What do you think is
Speaker 3: the balance there between honoring I suppose, the heritage of
Speaker 3: circus while being in what sounds like a very functional
Speaker 3: and happy environment.
Speaker 4: You know, when I first told people I was going
Speaker 4: to the circus. They immediately said, well, you've always been
Speaker 4: a clown when you don't wax.
Speaker 2: You're the bearded lady, and.
Speaker 1: Oh that is harsh.
Speaker 4: It's finally good to see you joining the freak show.
Speaker 4: So it was like that immediate connotation which does spring
Speaker 4: to mind, and it's so fascinating because it doesn't translate whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And I think what blows my mind with surp Disilay
Speaker 4: and how they kind of do walk that fine line
Speaker 4: between the legacy and the heritage is that it is
Speaker 4: so alady and driven and they have this unique capacity
Speaker 4: to be able to translate their show. I mean, the
Speaker 4: show has been viewed by four million people. I think
Speaker 4: they said something like forty different countries they've traveled to
Speaker 4: in the forty year history, which is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: But it is entirely rooted in this idea of like, we.
Speaker 4: Are entertainers first, we are performers second, and we fuse
Speaker 4: that into the legacy of how we want people to
Speaker 4: perceive this act and it still relies solely on whether
Speaker 4: they know that people are going to be smiling or
Speaker 4: they're going to be moved, or they're going to feel emotional,
Speaker 4: They're going to feel connected, like it is very much
Speaker 4: a fuel process that they cannot perform if they do
Speaker 4: not feel like they're making people smile. And it's it
Speaker 4: makes me emotional because I was speaking to one of
Speaker 4: the performers. His name's Helena Murdon, incredible acrobatch is a
Speaker 4: former diver, did every single sport associated with heights you
Speaker 4: can imagine. And she was telling me she saw her
Speaker 4: first sex dissilay show when she was seven in her
Speaker 4: hometown of Brisbane. She was so enamored and she had this,
Speaker 4: you know, like this childlike innocence to her. She was like, well,
Speaker 4: I can do a backflip, so surely I can be
Speaker 4: part of this show. And it actually fueled her to
Speaker 4: do that and she celebrated this year twenty years on
Speaker 4: performing on the same stage she first witnessed as a
Speaker 4: child and completed that circle of magic. And to her,
Speaker 4: it was this idea that I witnessed a spectacle in
Speaker 4: a dream come to life before me, I didn't witness
Speaker 4: the show, and then.
Speaker 2: I made it happen.
Speaker 1: That's very movie I know.
Speaker 2: Oh oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: I was driven to tears mainly because of that story,
Speaker 4: but also because my back was killing me at that point.
Speaker 1: Well, now I want you to teach me how to
Speaker 1: do a forward role.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, you got to tuck your neck in and
Speaker 4: then hope for the best.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 3: To get tickets to Serk to Sola, just search Lutzia.
Speaker 3: That's lu Zia. You can read Bianchor's story and watch
Speaker 3: her inaction right now in The Australian's Review section. At
Speaker 3: The Australian, we publish high quality video journalism every day
Speaker 3: about everything from politics to wine and the deeply personal
Speaker 3: stories from our health journos. Bianca is one of the
Speaker 3: people behind the lens. She's part of our talented team
Speaker 3: of video experts. To check out their work, search for
Speaker 3: The Australian on YouTube, or go to Be Australian dot
Speaker 3: com dot au slash video