By Nick Dent
Yaron Lifschitz is trying to explain how Brisbane became a world force in contemporary circus.
“We were probably less bound by how things should be and how you’re supposed to tell stories in the grown-up world,” he says.
Circa is performing their show, “What Will Have Been”, in the 20th year of the company’s rebranding.Credit: Steady Jenny Photography
“Second and third cities have a real place in the arts that is hard to quantify. We’re freer to kind of invent and make it up ourselves.”
Rock n’ Roll Circus, founded in Brisbane by Antonella Casella and teenager Derek Ives in 1987, aimed to bring circus to adult audiences in the hotbed of resistance to the Bjelke-Petersen regime.
The company was admired, and even performed internationally, but was run as a collective, and by the late 1990s, was in danger of losing focus and funding.
So 20 years ago, in 2004, Rock n’ Roll Circus rebranded as Circa, and Lifschitz, the youngest person ever accepted into NIDA’s directing course, put up his hand to become its first artistic director – despite lacking a circus background.
“We were looking to make work that was more challenging, more difficult, more interesting, more weird.”
Yaron Lifschitz
He set the renamed Circa on a course to being one of Australia’s most acclaimed cultural exports, one that has performed in more than 45 countries to almost 2 million people.
Over the next two months alone, Circa has three different shows playing in Germany, Belgium, Finland, UAE and Macau. The company has also performed at London’s Barbican Centre and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
“Some of those venues and opportunities are really the stuff of dreams,” Lifschitz says.
In Brisbane, they are staging What Will Have Been, a key part of their repertoire that has never been performed publicly in their home town.
Artistic director Yaron Lifschitz has stayed with Circa for so long because “every day’s a school day”.Credit: Nick Dent
An emotionally charged 65-minute work for three acrobats (Daniel O’Brien, Kimberley Rossi and Zac Stephens) and one violinist (Queensland Symphony Orchestra first violin Rebecca Seymour), What Will Have Been is for Lipschitz “the essence of what we do”.
“Yes, this circus-style work was filled with acrobatic and aerial feats,” a 2019 review in the LA Dance Chronicle read, “but what it possessed that is so often lacking in such programs was a deep expression of humanity.”
Stephens, who joined last year, says he was inspired to become a performer by attending Circa shows.
“Circa was one of the first companies that really gelled dance and theatre and performance. No other company seemed to be doing that,” he said.
Lifschitz says he has stayed with Circa for so long because “every day’s a school day”.
“I don’t feel like I’ve been at one company for 25 years, I feel like I’ve been at 300 companies for a month.”
Circa: What Will Have Been is at the Playhouse, QPAC, March 13-17. Book tickets.
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