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