Carnival of the Animals

Brisbane’s C!RCA ensemble’s Carnival of the Animals is an energetic and fun show for children and the young at heart of all ages. It showcases an incredible array of human talents – from juggling to jumping, tumbling and human towers to trapeze tricks – and introduces us ingeniously to a range of animal characters: favourites of all types, including kangaroos, elephants, dinosaurs, dogs – and even the dog’s fleas!

The show is framed as a child’s dream and the wonderful costumes by Libby McDonnell introduce the acrobats as medieval clowns putting on a circus show. The performers introduce a range of animals – not in the old-fashioned cheap circus tricks sense, but in a warm tribute to our evolutionary cousins that reminds us we are all on this planet together. The wider sustainability themes are a bonus in a show already packed with layers of fun and physical expertise. There are simple mime and playacting skills that kids will love to pick up on and try at home – and balancing, leaping and spinning that you definitely won’t want to try at home! These are super trained and practised performers whose ease hides the difficulty of their show pieces. My absolute favourite is the skipping kangaroos, a cheeky nod to everyone’s cherished furry TV star for audiences of a certain generation.

C!RCA’s talented ensemble acrobats – Rhiannon Cave Walker, Cassia Jamieson, Gerramy Marsden, Alice Muntz, Andrew Summer, Billie Wilson-Coffey and Ash Youren – are joined on stage by eight young performers from Brisbane and the Gold Coast, putting their incredible circus skills to the test. This addition to the show will surely inspire some future acrobats sitting in the audience too. It’s impossible to single anyone out, but surely as the youngest in the cast, Erianthe Akaata, Harrison Smith and Adeline Saunders deserve special mention (in the troupe that I saw) for keeping up with their talented friends and adding even more spark and fun to the show.

The stage set backdrops are crucial to the action, and an incredible video design by Michaela French transports the performers and the audience high into the skies and deep under the water as the performers take on animal characters from high-flying birds to turtles and fish! The miming and acting skills are just as impressive as the acrobatics. Keeping everything ticking over at a quick pace is amazing technical directing and lighting by Jason Organ. And the sound design and composition by Quincy Grant is crucial as this piece is inspired by the cinematic musical work of French composer Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns.

Created by the ensemble and their director, Yaron Lifschitz, with QPAC’s Out of the Box Festival in 2014, this show deserves to be rerun for new generations of fans. It has been performed in more than 60 cities worldwide, including a recent run in Singapore. Carnival of the Animals is only on for a short run in the school holidays. Don’t miss it!

Beth Keehn

Photographer: Darren Thomas, Photoco