Wunderkammer

Wunderkammer
Directed by Yaron Lifschitz. Presented by Circa. Malthouse Theatre (Vic). August 15 - September 1, 2013.

Wunderkammer (literally ‘wonder-room’, or “a cabinet of curiosities” according to Circa’s Artistic Director Yaran Lifschitz), is an ideal concept for this outstanding, Brisbane-born, contemporary circus ensemble to explore.

The pact that circus performers make with their audience, themselves, and each other, is one of death-defying precision – built on significant levels of almost innate trust.

When it all goes horribly wrong, as it did for Cirque du Soleil acrobat Sarah Guillot-Guyard during a performance of the company’s Ka in Las Vegas recently, then its brutal finality is horrifying. As contemporary circus artists develop their craft, the quintessential dilemma will always be how easy it all looks – not to mention how spoiled we are in Australia to have a bountiful number of artists and companies challenging the limitations of the art to (like this ensemble) international acclaim.

For circus performers over the centuries of its evolution as an artform, the primary relationship has always been the one they have with the ground – either their distance from it on the traditional high-wire and trapeze, or its role in the limitless physical vocabulary explored and defined through movement and dance.

Groundlessness is interrogated rigorously and magnificently in Wunderkammer. In one of Lifschitz’s artform defining masterstrokes, Casey Douglas and the extraordinary Kimberley Rossi traverse the not inconsiderable width of The Merlyn Theatre’s stage – centimetres from the floor – using only two blocks of hardwood and, astonishingly, every part of Ms Rossi’s body to keep him from touching the ground. Watching a woman place her face under a man’s foot so it doesn’t touch the ground – because it mustn’t – is confronting, appalling, challenging and liberating all at the same time.

Challenging age-old perceptions of gender identity through strength, form and risk is one of the languages of this ensemble – punctuated by the fact that only Ms Rossi and the divine Brittannie Portelli (whose reverse strip early is only topped later by her trapeze-based strip) take to the air on apparatus. Equally, their grounded pas de deux is a ferocious, playful, disciplined and illuminating battle for if not domination, then certainly influence.

The male members of the ensemble – Duncan West, Mr Douglas, Robbie Curtis and Nathan Boyle – were far from relegated to support acts, with much of their acrobatics simply breath-taking. But the male narrative was not as fully, or satisfactorily, resolved in this work – even if you might never be able to look at a sheet of bubble-wrap again in quite the same way.

Geoffrey Williams 

Images: Sean Young Photography

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