As we wait for the show to start we’re treated to the sound of Dean Martin singing ‘That’s Amore’. Knot is a love story – but one whose Facebook relationship status might read ‘it’s complicated’.

Nikki (Rummer) and JD (Broussé) arrive on stage and announce themselves. They’re dressed in baggy, neutral coloured rehearsal wear. They tell us about how they met. They talk about previous relationships. As JD talks about Aurelie, Nikki gives him sidelong looks and there’s a small wry smile on her face. As Nikki talks about Leo, JD shifts uncomfortably, and gives us a magnificently French ‘pfff’.

They move away from the mics and onto the floor, stripping off a layer as they go, for the first of a number of gorgeous sequences combining acrobatics, contact dance, and hand-to-hand (the piece is choreographed with Lost Dog’s Ben Duke). The soundtrack is a smooth and mellow jazz track. Such fluid, graceful movement. Cradling herself into JD’s body, as they both lie on the floor, Nikki tells us that she needs a man who can lift her, support her. She outlines what she loves about his skin, his chest, his hands, the musculature of his arms.

Now standing, the lifts and drops and balances become more energetic, intense. But something’s going wrong. ‘Let’s do that one again’ she says. There’s an argument. She leaves. Not just off the stage, but right out of the room, down the stairs – trip, trap, trip, trap. JD is left alone. ‘I can do things by himself’ he says petulantly, giving us a warrior pose. Now what? He waits nervously for her return, then calls for her. Nothing, and then – thank God! – trip trap trip trap, back she comes. There’s a gorgeously sulky sequence, Nikki balanced at full arm’s length high on his hand, her arms crossed, a grumpy expression on her face. When it’s her turn to be left alone onstage, she’s better at coping, giving us cheery solo pirouettes and cartwheels, channelling the girl gymnast she once was.

Back together again, more chat: he’s the person she shares her 2-4-1 railcard with, the person whose body she knows better than anyone else’s, the person she sees more than anyone else, who she shares a bed with, but things aren’t quite as they seem. There’s a twist to the tale….

The rest of the piece plays out with new information on the table (I won’t say what), as the two explore what it means to be ‘together’. There is a very lovely sequence, to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ ‘I Am a Portrait of a Man’ – exploring masculinity, unsurprisingly, with some thought-provoking revelations about each performer’s relationship with their father.

Knot isn’t a ‘big wow’ show, but rather, a gently clever piece that merges autobiographical storytelling, dance and acrobatics beautifully. The love and commitment between these two shines out from the stage, and it feels an honour to spend an hour in their company. That’s Amore, indeed.

Knot is presented in association with Jacksons Lane

Contemporary circus, like dance before it, was once perched precariously on the outer edges of the performing arts scene – insiders headed to Circus Space or Circomedia to get their fix; outsiders thought themselves daring for going to see Cirque du Soleil whenever they visited (and every time that company was reviewed in its early UK appearances, the review came with an astonished comment that there were – gosh! – no animals, and it wasn’t aimed at children). The Soleil model soon became the new traditional.

All that’s changed, with circus of all sorts programmed in built venues across the UK, and a strong feature of outdoor arts festivals nationwide. We have an educated audience for circus, both generally across these British and Irish Isles, and specifically at the Edinburgh Fringe, which has strong circus programmes at numerous venues, most notably those run by Assembly and Underbelly.

Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows is the Fringe’s only dedicated circus space, and features two venues which run shows day and night throughout August. The Lafayette  is a 550 seat-big top) and The Beauty is a 500-seat Spiegeltent. The two venues are named after one of the world famous circus performer and illusionist The Great Lafayette and his dog Beauty, who famously both died in Edinburgh in 1911.

Here’s three very different circus shows seen at the Hub. All  had full and highly appreciative audiences… And take a look elsewhere on Total Theatre Magazine’s reviews section for more circus shows reviews, at Circus Hub and elsewhere. It’s a bumper year for circus at the Fringe!

Race Horse Company’s Super Sunday is an artier and more knowing take on the ‘boys with their circus toys’ model, presented at the Circus Hub big top, Lafayette. If you can imagine a wild dream – sometimes verging on nightmare – of what happens at the fairground after dark, this is it. The carousel horses come off their roundabout and canter around – the ludicrous multicoloured hobby horse meets pantomime horse costumes/whole body masks are wonderful. Talking of which, we also have a morose and tatty six-foot teddy bear – I imagine him as the prize on the ding-the-bell strongman contest come to life. He gets catapulted into the heights. There are teeter boards and trampolines, the later of which, after a spectacular sequence involving all six of the fabulous Finnish performers, becomes a toddlers’ bouncy play-space filled with garish plastic balls  There’s a crazy car catapult, and in an odd turn – perhaps because it is Sunday in the world of the show – we get a crucifixion scene that would give The Life of Brian a run for its money, the wooden cross eventually turning into a Russian beam. The grand finale is a Wheel of Death – rarely seen these days. It’s massive: two giant hamster wheels joined together, spinning on an axis. ‘Jesus’, his long hair flowing, is fastened to the underneath of one wheel, seemingly just with clingfilm, whilst the others take turns leaping on and off the wheels as they dip down. As in every other scene in this brilliant show, the pace is frenetic, the performers’ stage presence cheekily boyish and playful, and the skills astonishing. If you want all the wows of traditional circus delivered with contemporary knowingness, this is the show for you.

Company 2’s Le Coup, seen at The Beauty (Circus Hub’s other venue), is a perfect Spiegeltent show. It’s presented by the company that brought us Cantina and Scotch and Soda, and is another feel-good whoop and holler outing. (The company do also make more experimental circus theatre work presented in regular end-on theatre settings, but that’s a whole other story.) The premise this time round is that the company are a travelling boxing show, who have ‘nothing to lose and everything to gamble’. So ding ding, here we go – welcome to the ring, amongst other magnificent characters: The Ugly Hungarian, The Sisterless Twin, Sally the Alleycat, the King of the Tent, and Barry the Cross-Dressing Builder. It’s brash, it’s bawdy – and it is bursting at the seams with strong circus acts, all mulched into the storyline with consummate ease. There’s apache-dance inspired acro, with girls swung madly around the space; men with red-painted forearms wrestling themselves in and out of gasp-worthy acrobalance poses; and hand-balancing on a construction made out of beer barrels – barrels previously used in a ludicrous human turtle race. There’s a live band, Father Grant and the Blunt Objects, all multi-instrumentalists (surf guitar, banjo, trumpet, drums, keyboards and more), featuring The Murderess, who gives us a whimsical folksy song about how she’d ‘kill again tomorrow’, which follows on from the excellent (male) solo trapeze act in which he turns the trapeze in on itself and ties himself in knots, accompanied by The Murderess on toy piano. The company use the audience and the auditorium brilliantly: there’s fake money issued to bet on the turtles; the foolish King with his bell-dinging device; the big and beefy Barry the Builder clambering over seats, naked but for two strategically placed hats; and hair-hanging referee ‘Audrey’ racing up and down the aisles, rounding up ‘contestants’. The finale is a fabulous cat-fight between Sister and Sally. Le Coup is a gloriously (mock) gory night out – a raucous rollercoaster ride through vaudeville’s darker histories.

Meanwhile, back at Lafayette, Circa: Humans makes a return appearance to the Fringe. Most of the action is floor-based acrobatics, tumbling or hand-to-hand – rolls and flips, rising and falling towers, walking on shoulders, swinging around or through bodies – although there’s some aerial (corde lisse and a three-person straps tag-team). There’s a hand-balancing act on tiny floor-level red bricks,and a clever take on the old vaudeville favourite, the Rag Doll routine, as a woman is puppeteered around the stage by her male partner. The transitions from one section to another are beautifully managed, and the relationship between performers (and occasionally, when they break the fourth wall, with audience) is gentle and touching. As always with Circa, women frequently base, and/or take the initiative. Music is brilliantly chosen, with Caetano Veloso’s Triste Bahia a firm favourite – used for a long and beautifully enacted acrobatics sequence that loosely references Brazilian capoeira. On second viewing, I love the show even more than ever – just human bodies in space, doing clever and beautiful things – who could ask for anything more?

Featured image (top): Company 2: Le Coup, at Underbelly Circus Hub’s Spiegeltent, The Beauty. 

For full details of all Circus Hub shows, see here

Australian circus company Casus brought their acclaimed autobiographical two man show You & I, staged in a theatre setting, to Edinburgh in 2018. For Ed Fringe 2019, the company (creators of Knee Deep and Driftwood) return to more familiar Spiegeltent territory with a new ensemble piece, DNA – in this case, increasing to a seven-strong company, four women and three men.

There’s a familiar Casus start as all make their entrances from different points in the auditorium, onto the almost-in-the-round thrust stage. At the rear of the thrust, lined up on stage, are a row of chairs, which are used throughout in a way sometimes reminiscent of Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof, as performers step in and out of the action. Bausch’s ghost is also present in the gestural choreography that is a motif throughout the piece, arm flicking or hair smoothing gestures mirrored, or passed from one performer to another.

Everyone is dressed in a deep red that feels like a visual extension of the tent’s red plush drapes, in varying styles of high-waisted pants, bodysuit or skirts, embellished or plain, so that each is part of the whole, yet individual. I struggle at first to understand the relevance of the title/theme, DNA, and especially don’t understand what the red-hooded figures that are a recurring motif  represent – hidden demons, perhaps? But never mind, it is visually lovely, highly skilled circus set to a great soundtrack. On reflection, I think the message is that although nature and nurture vie with each other within one human body, nature will out: we are who we are, regardless.

Although DNA takes on a more traditional format, the themes developed in former show You & I – of self-identity, and being true to yourself, play out here too. There’s fluid ensemble acrobatics and hand-to-hand, including a breathtaking never before seen (well, not by me anyway) walk-across that turns into a cartwheel; expert hand-balancing, using those chairs, naturally; and plenty of challenges to gender stereotype, with a strong female base holding up two, three or more of the other women (and often men).

In a lighter moment, there’s a comic aerial act in red high heels and a vaudevillian flouncy dress that refuses to guard its wearer’s modesty, this to what sounds like Florence Foster Jenkins, the early 20th century opera singer who refused to believe that she couldn’t sing. A metaphor for the trappings of femininity that are holding the woman back? A shadow screen at the rear of the stage is used cleverly to add another visual dimension to the piece.

All the ensemble are great – but the stars that shine brightest are Jesse Scott and Lachlan McAuley, co-founders of Casus (with DNA director Natano Fa’anana, and Emma Serjeant, who left the company a few years back). These two base and fly with such tender ease, whether on the ground or in the air for the doubles trapeze, their bodies moulding into and growing from each other effortlessly. Maybe, following on from You & I, it’s because we know that the two men are a longstanding couple in real life, as well as in circus life, that the love and support visible tugs so strongly at our heart-strings.

DNA feels a little uneven, and not completely cooked as a show – but it is so skilled, full of so many beautiful images, and balances strength and tenderness so well, that on balance, it’s fine.

A naked woman walks into a room. (That could be the opening line for a dodgy male comedian’s routine, right?). There’s not much in the room, but there is a free-hanging rope – the French term corde lisse says it so much more elegantly.

The rope becomes a serpent. Puppetry, kind of. The serpent speaks: EAT THE APPLE says the serpent. But, says Eve, God told us not too, said we would die if we did. DON’T EAT THE APPLE, said God. She takes her chances. She eats the apple – eats it noisily, with great gusto, enjoying every bite, every chew. Yeah, go Eve! The knowledge is yours to chew over, to digest…

She gives us a run-down of her body: two arms, two elbows (around halfway up the arms, good for bending), two legs (good for running, dancing, climbing ropes). Two breasts, two bottom cheeks, two lips. Canny look. On her face. Two eyes – she has a party trick, she can make her eyes move independently. She demonstrates. Excellent! She mentions that her other party trick is Irish Dancing. (Well, with a name like Murphy, you’d expect no less.) She doesn’t demonstrate that skill, but we live in hope…

The room is full. She’s in control – like the best stand-ups. The audience is eating out of her hand. She’s not a stand-up comedian, but she walks and talks the mores of stand-up. We even, quite often, forget she is naked. It has become normal, how she is and what she is at this time, in this space. She climbs the rope. Then we remember she is naked, because it is quite hard to really work the rope naked – your skin gets frayed and burnt. it’s a challenge.

There are stories – confessional/autobiographical stories – we are somewhere in-between stand-up and performance art. There are punchlines. The favourite is ‘What a cunt’. The teenage her agreed to have sex with him, but then it turned nasty. He pinned her down with his knee, and wanked off over her face. What a cunt! A slightly older her was taking a little rest in a bedroom at a party and a guy lay down next to her. She said no, and dozed off, but when she woke up, her phone had been nicked. What a cunt! Each punchline sends her up the rope, writhing and twisting, climbing high, higher, highest and hurtling to the ground.

Now we have a solution to the nakedness rope-burn dilemma – clingfilm! Perfect costume! She wraps herself up in this parody of the aerialist’s shiny leotard, and up she goes again. She climbs, wraps the rope around her, twists and turns and splits and drops. Circus skills are just one component of this multi-artform, multi-layered work – but the skills are consummate, honed. This is important. She’s an acclaimed contemporary circus artist, and this is her medium of expression.

There’s the live chatter – about teenage sexual assault, about coming of age, about heartbreak, about gender and identity, about adult Queer life in the here and now – and there are the lip synchs. She channels a couple of male American comedians. I don’t know who they are – I know very little about male American comedians – so I ask. One is Rodney Carrington. (I look him up. He has a YouTube series called Talking to My Pecker. I snigger. I can’t help myself.) He sings Country songs. She sings along to Florence and the Machine. ‘It hurts.’ And – yes, oh yes! – there is Irish Dancing. Naked Irish Dancing to the tune of ‘When You’re Smiling’.

Contra is directed by Ursula Martinez, and perhaps because I know this, I see evidence of Ursula in the comic timing, the facial expressions, and – especially – in that little mouth-half-open, twinkly-eyed pause before the killer line. There are also, inevitably, echoes of Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: a One-Lady Rape about Comedy. But this is no bad thing: I’m talking echoes, resonances, associations. I’m talking being part of a noble tradition, a continuum, a monstrous regiment of women. Associations aside, Laura Murphy is very much her own woman, and Contra is a big, bold statement. It’s a very well constructed piece, writing and direction working hand-in-glove. Seeds planted reap harvests later: the tiresome ‘Give us a smile, love’ morphing into the surreally funny, vaudevillian ‘When You’re Smiling’ scene; the promise of Irish Dancing fulfilled.

I keep coming back to the Irish Dancing. This neat, tight, orderly dance form – the pride and joy of the Irish Catholic mothers watching the little girls at the Feiseanna with their perfect dark-haired ringlets (Laura has perfect dark-haired ringlets) kicking their legs high, arms straight by the side, in the one-two-three-four-five-six-seven slip jigs and reels and hornpipes. To dance it naked feels like the ultimate subversion – sacrilege, almost. Eve breaking free of the shackles of patriarchy, as represented by church and state. Go Eve, go! Dance, dance, dance!

 Laura Murphy: Contra is presented in association with Aurora Nova

Texting, sexting, manly posing, boyish blushing, girly gossiping, questioning the given gender stereotypes, questioning your sexuality, questioning everyone else’s sexuality, finding out who and what you are, coming out, wanting your best friend’s boy, morphing from mouse to vamp, playing with BDSM, finding true love… Oh Lord, aren’t you glad, so glad you are no longer young?

Filament is, say producing company Short Round Productions, inspired by 1980s teen films – following eight characters and their coming-of-age stories. The piece has been put together by creative producer Joseph Pinzon, who trained at the National Circus School in Montreal, and as a performer worked with big name Quebecois companies such as Soleil and Cirque Eloise. New York based Paul McGill is the very able choreographer. The show is backed by an impressive number of co-producers, including Aurora Nova’s Wolfgang Hoffman, and features (as so many circus shows do) an evolving international cast.

Like most coming-of-age tales, it is appealing less to teenagers (although anyone would like Filament, I’m sure) than to those of use looking back with adult knowing. 

Every character has their through-line, but the one that takes my attention is that of the gentle boy who needs to learn to back flip, played by the UK’s own Tom Ball. His soft and subtle trapeze work, which –  as the music builds – moves into a tortured expression of teenage angst, is spot-on. He plays his character with great aplomb, and the denouement of his storyline, in which he ends up with his gay-but-doesn’t-know-it-yet macho friend, is dealt with sensitively. Tom was previously seen in Silver Lining: Throwback, which has not dissimilar themes to Filament, although very different in style and tone.

In a parallel story line, contortionist Allison Schieler plays the bespectacled, sweet but uncool girl Leslie, whose friends rally round to help her ditch the specs, remake herself, overcome her shyness, and get her boy – and the punchline is, he loves her specs! Her finale contortion act, as sinuous as a snake, enchanting ‘CD’ and making him her own, is terrific – and an unusual choice for an ending act, putting the emphasis on the narrative need rather than going for whatever is the showiest.

Skills-wise, we get the full contemporary circus gamut throughout the show: a gorgeous hooping routine from Jess Mews (to ‘That’s Not My Name’); aerial trapeze (as mentioned), silks/straps from Anna Kichtchenko, and hoop (Bekah Burke); the sort of juggling I like best from Bertan Canbeldek, soft and sensuous, dancing the balls downwards in the space; smooth hand balancing from Mark Keahi Stewart; Cyr wheel from the feisty Oscar Kaufmann; and some lovely acro/hand-to-hand ensemble sections that includes the famous Dirty Dancing lift (the best ever 1980s coming of age movie, IMHO).

Whilst watching the piece, I loved the circus acts, and admired the way the whole piece was put together – it is a series of acts, but they are weaved well into the storyline, everything is well executed, and nothing feels out of place. At first, I felt some reservation about the gender stereotyping – but as the piece progresses this is gently usurped, and I was won over. Like the films it references, it is a gentle and whimsical reflection on the teenage years.

In some ways, the show reminds me of the work of Les 7 Doigts – unsurprisingly, as they have been such trailblazers on the Montreal scene, and  they have also made a show about growing up and coming of age stories (at least one of this current cast has performed with them).

But Filament is a strong enough piece to stand its own ground – a really delightful and heartwarming show that I feel will stay with me longer than some of the more bombastic circus work seen at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.