Circus of the aer
High-flying new performance at Market Hall features new work in contemporary circus
Look up ... look way, way up. That would be Femmes du Feu, a Toronto-based troupe specializing in aerial work, high above the audience. They’re coming to Peterborough Sunday at 4 p.m., performing at Market Hall and hosted by the Peterborough Academy for Circus Arts and Public Energy.
Tickets are $10 at the door, and for children, it’s pay-what-youcan.
The show is called Aer Time, and it’s described as an aerial showcase featuring circus artists from Peterborough and Toronto in new or experimental performances.
Six performers will use a variety of aerial apparatuses and highlight varied styles as they spin, float and contort high above the Market Hall stage.
Once they’re done, the audience can take part in a discussion and feedback session to learn more about aerial work, something that dates back to the earliest days of the stage and has been a staple of circuses for centuries. Performers include:
Opal and Thomas Vaccaro (Peterborough Academy of Circus Arts, PyroFlys)
Kollene Drummond (Peterborough Academy of Circus Arts)
Angola Murdoch and Holly Treddenick (Look-Up Theatre, Femmes du Feu) Georgia Schultz Zita Nyarady and Myque Franz (The Grand Salto Theatre)
Holly Treddenick, Angola Murdoch, Lara Ebata, Natalie Fullerton and Diana Lopez (Circus Orange, Les Coquettes)
Nyarady, PhD candidate in Performance Studies at York University, explains the concept of the contemporary circus, and how it blends new ideas with old traditions, in a blog post on the Femmes du Feu website.
“Contemporary Circus can be large spectacle, fire, aerialists and dancers, spinning wheels of a giant tricycle driven by a clown called Foo (Circus Orange’s Tricycle); Contemporary Circus can be human, 60 performers in everyday clothing, shaking, climbing and descending ropes (Anandam Dance Theatre’s Cascade); Contemporary Circus can be a place to tell stories, theatricality, character and plot (Firefly Theatre & Circus); Contemporary Circus can be a great many things.
“The contemporary circus artist is an aesthetic alchemist mixing components of circus arts (acrobatics, aerial arts, object manipulation, balance, clown) and other artistic disciplines (dance, theatre, music, visual art, film) together in unique combinations. This is why contemporary circus is so exciting, there are so many possibilities. Contemporary circus artists are pushing and pulling the boundaries of this form. I can hardly wait for the contemporary circus creation experiment of Circus Sessions!”
There’s more information available at www.femmesdufeu.com and on the group’s Facebook page.