Circus

Beyond

The Spiegeltent, Edinburgh

Mary Brennan

FOUR STARS

In these civilised times, we don’t countenance animals in the Big Top – well, not in the ring, anyway. Hold on... are those bunnies? Getting all acrobatically frisky on the teensy circle of a stage in this Spiegeltent? Trust Circa, the elastic-limbed (and elastically creative) company from Australia, to fool around with boundaries and go Beyond! If the fluffy bunny heads worn occasionally by the performers are a cutesy-comic look, they’re really a nod in the direction of some intriguing themes that Circa director, Yaron Lifschitz, has woven through the dramatic acrobalances, trapeze work and general gravity-defying derring-do. Drawing inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and Darwin especially, Lifschitz lets his imagination plunge down rabbit-holes while his seven performers – three male, four female – allow inner animal instincts to escape into action.

There’s a lovely moment of brinkmanship when a guy in an over-large bear suit essays the Chinese Pole, paws slip-sliding until – still on the pole – he emerges, lithe and free, from his furry cocoon. Feline grace, coupled with an innate ability to read space and judge distances – even when blind-folded – turns a woman’s solo balancing act across three poles of varying height into a poetic reality that shrugs off risk, celebrates strength as an art-form. In Circa-land, strength, flair and versatility trump gender every time: just as in 2014. when Beyond was a hit on the Fringe, Rowan Heydon-White’s insouciant rapid-solving of a Rubik’s cube while her mates pile onto her shoulders is a bravura display of skill, stamina and humour. If the Speigeltent’s intimate arena makes for a stripped-back look in terms of set, there’s no compromise in terms of cunning stunts or split-second thrills – Beyond does the trick brilliantly, every time.