We All Fall Down

We All Fall Down
NICA. NICA National Circus Centre, Green Street, Prahran. June 15 – 26.

We All Fall Down is “playful, adventurous circus that explores the [both fun and frightening] memories of childhood.” Childhood games such as four square, flying fox, mini golf, skipping, rock/paper/scissors, and a fireman’s pole flowed seamlessly into juggling, clowning, diving, and climbing in this highly varied and energetic performance.
NICA students choose their specialty areas during their course, with an obvious preference for more contemporary apparatus. Traditional apparatus such as stilt walking and unicycling appear to be rare, and last night’s show introduced two new apparatus I’ve never seen before: the aerial net and the Roue Cyr.
We All Fall Down included a mixture of pre-recorded and live music that was performed by the students themselves (as a whole ensemble or as member of the NICA Fanfare band). Children’s songs were interlaced with a cappella vocal percussion, traditional percussion, or the full band, which lent individual atmospheric support to every act.
Credit must be given to the unseen trainers and tech team. For every aerialist there is a hidden caretaker riding a safety line in absolute synch with each performer so that there was no distraction from the spectacle occurring before us.
There were a large number of children in the audience whose gasps of amazement were only drowned out by those of the adults sitting around me. Inspired by the creativity, resilience and courage of children, We All Fall Down features Australia’s best young circus artists-in-the-making and will enchant and delight adults and children alike.
Ian Nisbet

Image: Suzie Steel in We All Fall Down presented by the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA). Photo by Andrew Bott.

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