Young Fijian acrobats and dancers have landed at Melbourne Showgrounds for The Fijian Flying Circus.
The Fijian Flying Circus has roots in the sugarcane fields of Nadi, and now it’s upside down in Ascot Vale.
Made by Fijian social enterprise VOU, The Fijian Flying Circus is the country’s first homegrown circus. It’s at Melbourne Showgrounds until 22 November, following a string of sold-out shows at Brisbane Festival. Bodies fly overhead and dancers move to Pacific rhythms, while a cast of cheeky characters works for laughs from kids and grandparents alike. Fijian cultural storytelling threads through the whole show, and the Melbourne season sits under the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Australia Now program.
The Fijian Flying Circus
- Now showing until 22 November
- Melbourne Showgrounds, Epsom Road, Ascot Vale
- All ages
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
VOU dates back to 2007, when it started in Suva, and the name means new in Fijian. Its work mixes contemporary performance with Fijian cultural knowledge and identity. Since then the company has performed in more than 35 countries, with New Zealand’s Hamilton Arts Festival and Wellington Fringe Festival among the stops. In 2025, and again in April 2026, it took its performances into the Arts of Oceania galleries at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ticket sales help fund VOU’s Conservatorium of Dance, home to Fiji’s first accredited tertiary dance qualification. Each year, 20 young Fijians get a fully funded two-year performing arts diploma, with accommodation and a living allowance covered until they finish. Graduates then walk into guaranteed full-time work with VOU Dance Fiji.
All up, VOU employs more than 80 Fijians in the creative arts, and women hold most of its leadership roles. The performers working the Showgrounds this season are young Fijian artists whose training opened the door to professional careers, and Melbourne is the newest stop on their touring map.
Sachiko Soro, VOU’s director, wants the company’s students trained to an elite level that holds up anywhere in the world, so they can turn their talent into careers that last. Soro also reckons Fijians have a kind of happiness that rubs off on people, and she sees the circus as somewhere audiences can drop everything for a while and laugh together.
For more information, head here.
