Past Circus Oz’s tight warren of carpeted offices there’s a cavernous warehouse space. It’s at least 50 meters long and bedecked in pulleys, ropes and rubber mats, making it the standout candidate for what the website called “the circus laboratory”, and this writer officially enthralled.
Past Circus Oz’s tight warren of carpeted offices there’s a cavernous warehouse space. It’s at least 50 meters long and bedecked in pulleys, ropes and rubber mats, making it the standout candidate for what the website called “the circus laboratory”, and this writer officially enthralled.
Anni Davey, former Circus Oz ensemble member and guest director for The Blue Show, leads the way to a conference space walled by whiteboards with schedules punctuated by red texta and exclamation marks. It feels like we’ve stepped into a neuronal centre, spurring the sensation that Circus Oz HQ isn’t a building at all but rather a vast and somewhat misshapen organism. Furthering the notion, the echo of a pulse can be faintly discerned from the circus laboratory: the sound of weight testing tether, the impact of hands and feet hitting the floor.
“The Blue Show is an incarnation of something Circus Oz has done before,” Davey tells me right out, referring to the show the company was commissioned to develop for the Adelaide Festival in 2004, “It was so successful and so much fun for us, that we’ve been looking for an opportunity to do it again. Not that show exactly,” she hastens to clarify, “We’re continuing to call it The Blue Show because it feels like an incarnation rather than a whole new show, even though it has a completely different ensemble from six years ago.”
The original Blue Show was apparently created with two goals in mind: make it intimate and make it adult. They are two goals that Davey has no intention of dispelling, “We’ve got the intimacy, we’ve got the permission to explore transgression and sexuality and queerness, and we’ve got permission to explore small moments.”
The permission she refers to comes courtesy of the Midsumma Festival, Melbourne’s annual queer arts and cultural festival. It is a freedom not always enjoyed by Circus Oz. Davey mentions the Honkerman act, one that involved a near-naked man single-handedly managing a brass symphony by use of various bodily joints and crevices, “An American producer would come and see a show and be like, ‘Brilliant, I want it, I love it. But you can’t have that act.’ And we always get complaints. In Australia, we get complaints about political content: ‘How dare you shove that lefty political stuff down my children’s throats,’” she recites by way of example, before adding that the complaints are minimal in light of audience attendance rates, as well as tempered by a steady stream of positive feedback.
If the image of a man sounding a horn through some well-timed clenching of buttock cheeks is too much for some, The Blue Show may just induce cardiac arrest. Davey promises an assortment of acts for the mature palate including the ghost of a singing diva from the 1900s, Aussie bogans, and full-frontal nudity. “Sexuality’s a tricky thing to put in front of an audience,” Davey concedes, “I mean, sex is tricky. But not so much in front of a Midsumma audience.”
Circus Oz is well known for its social justice agenda, one that has mainly focussed on asylum seekers in recent years. When the question whether gay rights were to be included in The Blue Show is put to Davey however, it seems her prerogative as director lies more with the exploration of queerness than with its defence, though this approach does still indirectly support same-sex equality.
“It’s programmed for the festival so one of the focuses toward the end of the show is toward transgression and sexual differences,” Davey muses, “Fluidity. The fluidity of sexuality… But performing circus [itself] is necessarily in your face and is intimate – particularly in a small space,” she adds, “It [sex] is inherent in circus, if you see what I mean. You’re using bodies – and fit bodies are gorgeous – and the skills require some proximity. All that sort of stuff adds up.
People find it sexy. And there’s a lot more inherent in circus in terms of trust and difference. You can’t make a circus without a whole lot of different types of people. They all have to be different sizes. Big is as good as small, fat is as good as thin, bendy is as good as manipulative. It becomes a very egalitarian art form. And also inherent in the egalitarianism of the art form is a pursuit of excellence. So the egalitarian doesn’t mean mediocrity.”
With such a diverse ensemble and such artistic license, The Blue Show could profess any number of themes. Under Davey’s watch however, the focus is the theme of heaven and hell, or rather: subverting it, “Sarah (Ward, of celebrated cabaret alter-ego Yana Alana) sings, ‘I don’t want to go to Heaven / there are bad people there,’” Davey explains, “And there are. You know, paedophilic priests go to heaven. Why would you want to go there? And if queers and deviants are to go to hell, well, I want to go there. I suppose that’s the key to it.”
Contemporary circus, the medium through which The Blue Show conveys its message, means that such conceptual concerns of Davey’s may be explored in depth. Contemporary circus differs from traditional circus in that it’s “unashamedly performative,” as Davey puts it, “as opposed to demonstrative [showing off skills]. What I mean by performative is that performers are trying to access a kinetic or visceral response in an audience. And whether we’re trying to be piss-funny, or we’re trying to be gut-wrenchingly beautiful, we’re deliberately going for those marks.”
(Fun fact! Circus Oz is often touted as being the first contemporary circus company in the world, preceding and perhaps even inspiring such established giants as Cirque du Soleil.)
Davey’s own experience as a performer – an aerial artist – has given her some first-hand experience with what gets a good audience response. When it is suggested that perhaps her history onstage has influenced her as a director, she nods. “Absolutely,” she declares, “because I understand the parameters. And I’m prepared to break the rules.” She proceeds to list some: it is a rule in circus, for example, that you should not walk backwards when you are speaking to an audience, because it diminishes your power. That you should not breathe to convey emotion while you are speaking to an audience. Another rule is that you should never start an act with your best trick, but rather with your second-best, and then finish with your best.
“The thing about rules,” Davey is careful to point out, “Is that they’re not worth articulating unless you’re prepared to break them.”
She grins, “But I know what they are. And with good reason, I’m very happy to break them.”
If The Blue Show is anything like the up-close and very personal encounter it shows all signs of being, such promises happily look set to be kept.
Circus Oz’s The Blue Show will be shown as a strictly limited season at the 100 year old Circus Oz Melba Spiegeltent at the corner of Waterfront Way and Docklands Drive, Docklands from January 13 until February 6. Tickets cost $38/$30 concession ($28 for groups over 8), and you can book through midsumma.org.au or 9495 6589. For further information visit circusoz.com/blueshow.
