Circus Oz has managed perhaps the most remarkable trick possible: it has come back from the dead.
When the pioneering circus announced it was closing its doors in December 2021, the news came as a shock. As revealed by this masthead, the company’s members had rejected the terms of a review imposed by the federal government that would have changed the way the company was run.
The entire board resigned and issued a statement saying it was a “devastating blow” to the team and that it had no choice but to wind the company down because the members’ decision meant they would lose $2.6 million in federal and state subsidies, making the company unviable.
Circus Oz trapeze artists in rehearsals ahead of their show in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.Credit: Scott McNaughton
Then, in February last year, Circus Oz issued a statement declaring: “Reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated”. It announced a new board and declared it was all systems go for the company.
Now, Circus Oz is about to make its premiere, directed by circus performer turned actor/director Nicci Wilks, as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The hour-long show is described as “a collision of comedy, clown, acrobatics, skipping, bows and arrows, beauty, muscles, music, flying trapeze, juggling, slapstick, crazy antics and daredevilry by the hand of an eclectic ensemble spanning six decades”.
Nicci Wilks and Regina Hill of Circus Oz.
Asked what happened to the organisation, new board chair Regina Hill declined to go into detail but says: “You don’t exist as a company for 45 years by staying the same”.
“It’s clear that the circus went through a tumultuous time, and we have spent a period of time regrouping,” Hill says. “But as a company, we’re really focused on the future.
“We are in a position to draw off our past but build something that is the next iteration of a company that has actually iterated itself in many forms, multiple times.”
Established in 1977, Circus Oz is known for work that is political, irreverent and boundary pushing. A pioneer of contemporary circus locally and globally, it is also collectively owned by its membership. The February statement named an entirely new board, made up of Hill, Bryce Menzies and John Paxinos, and Chad Albinger, who occupies a position as a company member. It spelled out the company’s commitment to “a new phase for Circus Oz”.
Circus Oz had been on “fair notice” with the Australia Council for the Arts since 2018 due to ongoing concerns over its financial position, governance and declining attendance. Hill says Circus Oz no longer receives operational funding from the Australia Council or Creative Victoria.
Circus Oz performers at Birrarung Marr in 2021.Credit: Eddie Jim
The upcoming Melbourne season has been supported by the City of Melbourne and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “Circus Oz has adopted an entrepreneurial model in line with its creative strategy, investing in creative work and making smart use of company assets,” she says. “Circus Oz is in its 45th year. We’re going back to our roots to some extent entrepreneurially.”
The company assets she refers to include equipment, big top tents and its Spiegeltent, which it will use to support its creative activity and generate income.
“The new board and company members look forward to working together to find the right place for Circus Oz as an organisation which holds such a significant position in our cultural landscape,” the February statement read.
“The company continues to have a strong commitment to the agency of its people, the creation of original work that connects with the broadest possible audience, equity and social justice in the Australian and international community and to the wider circus sector.”
Under its constitution, the company is member-owned – currently including about 90 people – made up of anyone who has worked for Circus Oz for three years or more.
A spokesperson for the Victorian government said that together with the Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria was working closely with the new board of Circus Oz to understand their plans for the future and to ensure the building they currently use remains available to Victoria’s creative community.
“Creative Victoria has a lease with Circus Oz for this building and is in discussions about ensuring that Circus Oz and other creative organisations can access the building, helping to get more utilisation of this public asset,” they said. Rent for the building is significantly subsidised and assistance is provided to maintain the premises.
A lawyer and consultant, Hill says Circus Oz continues as an ensemble group committed to innovation and collaboration, underpinned by its trademark larrikinism.
In December last year, the company appointed Mexican-born and raised Alonso Pineda as general manager. A theatre director and producer who moved to Melbourne in 2019, he is the first Latin American graduate of the VCA’s master of directing for performance and describes himself as “interested in brave contemporary stories”.
Wilks and Stephen Burton are joint artistic co-ordinators of the company, both long-term members of Circus Oz. The new show is devised and performed by Debra Batton, Jarred Dewey, Sharon Gruenert, Spenser Inwood, Flip Kammerer, Chris Lewis, Leo Pentland, Carl Polke and Olivia Porter, with Susie Dee as creative consultant.
Wilks says it’s a special show, especially for long-term fans. “We’re bringing back a very, very old act, which the fans of early years of Circus Oz will remember – the Special Robert, but this time, it’s going to be the Special Roberta because Deb Batton, who’s in her 60s, is going to fly from one side of the stage to the other.”
Having started her career in the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Wilks says circus in its traditional sense was for the masses – and that remains true. “I also think it embraces diversity, and embraces diversity in bodies, in the human body, and what the human body can do and what you think it can’t do.”
Circus Oz is at the Forum from April 7-23 as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The Age is a festival partner.
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