This atmospheric debut performance from contemporary circus company Circumference tantalisingly seeks to merge theatrical content with spectacular circus, questioning how we interact in a world of increasing ‘social networks’. Shelter Me emerges out of a significant gestation period, with early versions of the work tested during Theatre Delicatessen’s SPACED Festival (at 35 Marylebone Gardens) and during their time as associate artists of Jackson’s Lane. Also supported by National Centre for Circus Arts, Circumference are a new company that have come far in the last 18 months, producing a show on a scale far larger than many companies of similar age.
What marks this out as an innovative and intriguing performance though, is the way the company have embraced working across three floors of Theatre Delicatessen’s latest base at #119 Farringdon Road. Shelter Me is an eclectic work, made up of an array of vignettes – each with a distinctive atmosphere defined by the scenography of the different spaces it occupies throughout the old Guardian newspaper office building. What it lacks in overall cohesion and dramaturgical unity it makes up for in the richness of the individual parts.
For want of a better word, this is a search for an ‘immersive circus’ – but unlike the work of Fuerzabruta say, Circumference are able to conjure moments of intimacy between the audience and performers that conventional contemporary circus rarely achieves. At the core of this intimacy is the way the company establish an easy rapport with their audience – at times mediated by technology. Key to this are company members Nich Galzin and Aislinn Mulligan, whose interactions with the audience are both gently enlivening and reassuring.
Shelter Me opens in a ground floor split-level bar, the performers gently and amicably guiding small groups of people through a variety of activities at different times: we learn a short phrase of a song, draw ‘selfies’ on a glass window, and gradually begin to ‘help out’ with brief circus tricks. This erosion of the distance between performer and audience is key in setting up the dynamic that will play out across the rest of the evening – establishing a sense of liberty and autonomy within clearly defined parameters. The tricks in the bar become more spectacular, with performers leaping from a mezzanine or walking across up-stretched hands. The easy-going, party atmosphere shifts when the performance moves to a Chinese pole duet atop an old caravan, glimpsed through the windows of the bar.
This evocative duet is made more so by the text messages we receive on our phones, which we’ve been asked to leave on. These messages sketch out the relationship of the two performers, their real relationship we are assured. This intriguing theatrical device succeeds in shifting the work’s attention from the spectacular to the dramatic, providing a tangible glimpse behind the circus form and a very interesting way to deliver narrative content.
It is this sense of peeling back the surface that the company work to sustain throughout the work, as we wander from room to room. There’s a room transformed into a maze of white drapes and a slate grey corridor where we are pushed up against wall as Galzin sails up and down its length poised in a German wheel. Each conjures a palpable atmosphere, often embellished by the delicacy with which the company deploy their routines.
The strongest moments of Shelter Me are those moments where we become part of the action, when the audience are able to interact with routines or view it from a specific angle: six people gently laid down under a silks routine for example, or crammed into a kitchen space and tasked with making a cup of coffee together. Less successful are the spaces without a performance element – a ‘hidden’ room dressed with string and luggage labels feels half-complete, and the naive questions written on the labels need some form of mediation to move from the glib to the poetic.
In preparation for the final act (a series of strap solos and duets) the audience is paired up (again using mobile phones), and we are escorted to the roof. Here we witness the performers arc across our heads with the skyline as a backdrop. This stunning location amplifies the thrill of the routines, the sensation that we too are raised off solid ground allows us a glimpse of the kinaesthetic thrill of the aerial tricks. In this Circumference really embrace the spectacular possibilities of circus. We listen to music on wireless headphones, and strangely this brings you closer to the performance rather than distancing you. This sensation is seized on when we are invited to remove our headphones (one ear piece at a time) and sing the refrain that we have just been listening to (the one we learnt in the bar earlier). The communality of this, whilst perched atop London’s skyline, is a transcendent moment – akin to that which Fuerzabruta conjure in their works – though more reflective and melancholy in tone.
What is most satisfying about the whole of this promenade through different rooms is that the inherent fragmentary structure makes clear sense of the inherent ‘act-ness’ of circus. Instead of attempting to elide their discrete tricks the company have embraced the separation. Whilst there still needs to be more dramaturgical unity in unpicking their chosen theme, this is a lovely way to experience circus, and most pleasing in the moments that Circumference craft an atmosphere that swallows you up.