‘I am Natalie and I like to do handstands. When I do a handstand  I feel strong and straight as a rocket. When I do handstands people notice me.’

This is a show that features Natalie Reckert doing an endless number of handstands and hand-balances on canes, and is almost exclusively about Natalie doing handstands and balances: the whens, the why’s, the wherefores. It is this, and it is so much more – the ability to do a handstand, and to stay upside down for long times, is used as a push-up point from which to launch an autobiographical reflection on life as a physical performer / circus artist. Sometimes Natalie feels as strong as a rocket, but sometimes she feels as fragile as an egg. The eggs come out to play brown ones because, ‘ it is so hard to get white eggs here’, and there is a contest to find the strongest one; the egg that survives the balances and body-smashes. Here it is, the super-egg, in its place of honour. Ta-da!

Natalie noticed early in life that some things get attention. Throwing her ice cream out of her pram, for example. A little older, around the age of five, she learnt to do a handstand, her gym teacher holding up her legs. She demonstrates, without the teacher to steady her. She is straight and strong as a rocket. She liked the attention being good at handstands got her; she made a life’s work of it. She talks to us from all sorts of strange positions: upside down, balancing one-handed on the canes, twisted or curved around the equipment. Sometimes, she says, I am as supple as a piece of liquorice.

These sections of beautiful moves counter-balanced with her autobiographical reminiscences and reflections on the nature of physical performance are totally gripping. I also enjoy her object play with the balancing equipment, the eggs, a fan and confetti, and with the white tissue paper her balancing canes are wrapped in, which she calls ‘sandwich paper’, the words sounding endearing when delivered with her charming German accent. The word-free sections of electro-robotic dance and gestural movement motifs I like less – her dance choreography and execution is so much less than her circus skills, and the discrepancy makes for a slightly uneven performance, although I do find the vogueing moves amusing.

But for the most part, I love it. I love her, I love her story, I love her honesty and her self-exposure. The show’s title is appropriate – the whole show is a kind of selfie, a reflection on putting yourself in the centre of the picture. This is a funny, but also moving and thought-provoking, show about the choice to use your body as your art, your instrument.