In Common, a work of tension, community and shared responsibility.
Melbourne Fringe Session Times
Gasworks Arts Park
Site: Gardens outside the terrace at Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park
Performances:
Friday 6th Oct 6pm
Saturday 7th Oct 2pm and 6pm
Sunday 8th Oct 2pm and 6pm
Bookings essential
Nicholson St Mall
Site: Nicholson St Mall, Footscray
Performances:
Thursday 12th – 6pm
Friday 13th – 6pm
Saturday 14th – 2pm and 6pm
Sunday 15th – 2pm
Federation Square
Site: Amphitheatre at Fed Square, Melbourne
Performances:
Wednesday 18th Oct 6pm
Thursday 19th Oct 6pm
Friday 20th Oct 6pm
Saturday 21st Oct 12:45 pm and 6pm
Sunday 22nd Oct 6pm
About the show
Tensegrity sculptures have an impossible quality – large solid bars seemingly suspended in mid-air, held in place by floating compression.
We are struck by the power these structures have to evoke wonder and curiosity. The same principle of suspended tension applies both to the human bodies of our acrobats – without the tensional network of fasciae and tendons your bones would just be a pile of sticks on the floor – and the connections and dynamism of a community.
This new work will continue our practice of exploring circus as it relates to life. We will grapple with the idea of the social safety net: the network of systems, formal and informal, created by society to support the lives of its people. This community safety net is not something tangible or visible. It is built by belief in shared responsibility for looking after each other and strengthened by the commitment that we collectively put into it. Like the invisible tension holding the tensegrity structure aloft, its strength exists in its wholeness – the pressures and forces acting on it being spread out and carried across all its parts.
This same principle applies to group acrobatics. In order to build a tower of three people standing on one another each person has a role to play in balancing the forces at work: minute shifts in weight to offset someone else’s; bearing someone’s weight under pressure to support the whole; and once it’s built, the whole tower standing still but buzzing with invisible tension and strength.
By bringing out these concepts inherent to the acrobatics and echoed in the sculptural structure in which the piece takes place, we will guide audiences through a visceral understanding of the care we owe others in our community. More than a mere ‘display of skill’ usually associated with circus, audiences will experience the thrill of throwing yourself into someone else’s arms and the weight of bearing them.
Creative Team
Directors: Charice Rust and Jonathan Morgan
Cast: Charice Rust, Jonathan Morgan, Easa Min-Swe, Claire Bindoff, Sarah Gray, Roya the Destroya, Shona Morgan, Rachel Locks
Production Head: Dawn Holland
Composition: Emma Kelly, Happy Axe
Lighting Design: John Collopy
Costume Design : Harriet Oxley
Support for this work
This project received Cash to Create through the Fringe Fund, with thanks to James McCaughey, Rupert Myer and the Pulse Giving Circle, as well as funding from The Gasworks Patrons Foundation.
The “In Common” Free Circus and Sculpture Live Performance is also supported through the Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund – a $200 million partnership of the Victorian Government and the City of Melbourne.
“This project received support from Flying Fruit Fly Circus through the Under Construction National Circus Residency
program.