Circus of the prodigal stars

BRISBANE-based circus company Circa has travelled a long way across the world to return in triumph.

Circa

YARON Lifschitz and an ensemble of three acrobats founded Circa in 2004 with one goal in mind: to tour Australia. Eight years on, the circus company's dream is a reality. All it had to do in the meantime was conquer the world.

"It's a funny thing in circus, you have to tour London, New York and Paris, and then you can play in Wangaratta," says Lifschitz, the company's artistic director.

"But it's actually a universal thing. Internationally, everyone's a bit suss on works from their home country."

Circa, fresh from an eight-month residency in Berlin, begins its long-awaited self-titled tour in the West Australian mining town of Port Hedland tomorrow. The Brisbane-based company, whose pared-back brand of vaudevillian circus is "the exact opposite of Cirque de Soleil", comprises 16 performers and three branches.

Circa has three shows in the works: in Australia, Europe and London. The last destination represents the company's global outreach: it was last year selected as an Australian representative at June's London Cultural Olympiad. How Like an Angel, a version of which premiered at this year's Perth Festival, was commissioned for the London event. The "gypsy-inspired fine arts piece" will be performed by the Australian company and vocal group I Faglioni in cathedrals in Norwich, Ripon, Gloucester and Cambridgeshire.

"It's fantastic. A real honour," says Lifschitz, the youngest person to have been accepted to the National Institute of Dramatic Art's graduate director's program. "We're getting these amazing opportunities . . . and it's all part of our expansion."

The company, which has been invited to perform at next year's Les Nuits de Fourviere festival in Lyons, has come a long way from its beginnings as an offshoot of Brisbane's Rock 'n' Roll Circus.

"In 2004 we didn't tour at all," Lifschitz says. "Last year we had 400 performances across 13 countries." The troupe turned heads last year when it opened the Montreal Circus festival, the Completement Cirque, with Wunderkammer, and remains the only Australian act to have performed at the La Tohu in Montreal, home of Cirque de Soleil and the national circus school.

Lifschitz says what characterises Circa is its "emotional integrity". "We wanted to make a circus that affects audiences, not just delights," he says. "We want to take people on a journey."

Audiences will find the touring production "subtly, but particularly Australian", he says. "This seven-member show, which is touring to cities and regional centres, could only have been produced in Australia . . . its freshness strikes you.

"Here is this old, inherited overseas art form and we are playing with that. You know, what if they were wrong all along? What if we could make a circus that's moving, inspiring? Let's make our own world and see what happens."

Having a muscle-toned woman in high heels take a leisurely stroll over a shirtless male's performer's body is just one of the show's "extreme elements". Leonard Cohen's I Came So Far for Beauty plays as it is performed. "It's touching, it's emotional, it's moving."

Is it painful? Lifschitz claims he wouldn't know.

"I'm the world's worst actor and a far, far worse acrobat. I'm shocking," he says. "But I'm very glad I get to work with these amazing people who can do amazing things."

Circa begins its national tour tomorrow at the Matt Dann Cultural Centre, Port Hedland, Western Australia.