One Fell Swoop Circus is presenting 'Kilter' as part of Melbourne Fringe this year.
Expect never-before-seen apparatus, award-winning acrobatics, live music by ORCHA and more.
You may think that 20th Century French philosophers in turtlenecks don’t have anything to do with people doing flips in their underwear, but you would be wrong.
Here are five ways that contemporary circus is existentialist af, with One Fell Swoop co-founder, Jonathan Morgan.
Acrobats are the ultimate absurd hero
Camus said the absurd hero is one whose “whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing”. If you’ve ever looked at a circus performer stand on their hands or balance on a piece of rope and wondered – ‘just…why?’ – then you know what we mean.
Circus and existentialism are physical philosophies
Forget ‘I think therefore I am’ – when you’re falling three metres above the ground existence is immediate and primary. When Sartre says ‘existence precedes essence’ imagine a performer thrust onto a stage – first you arrive, then, by your actions, you decide what you are.
Live free, determine yourself
Contemporary circus is, in the best existentialist tradition, young and rebellious. Women can be strong, men beautiful, weird bodies are amazing bodies. There is no skill too ridiculous for circus – if your thing is balancing eggs on your nose you can choose to be the person who balances eggs on their nose.
Existentialist despair – if I can’t do handstands anymore who even am I?
The radical freedom of existentialism doesn’t mean you can do anything you want, and Sartre uses the rather belligerent word ‘facticity’ to describes the limits of our freedom. Circus performers are professional pushers-of-limits, and the brutally literal limitation of a physical injury often hits pretty hard.
Authenticity – What happened to all the sequins?
‘Stripped back acrobatics’ is the cliché of contemporary circus’ quest for authenticity, but at its best watching normal human beings push the boundaries of what they can be affirms Simone de Beauvoir’s compelling call to action: “I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”
'Kilter' plays Theatre Works from 11-16 September.
