Changing preconceptions, the contemporary circus will open tomorrow, Friday, July 11, and run until July 27. Audiences at this Galway International Arts Festival event can enjoy the theatrics of trapeze, dance, juggling, and acrobatics, but all wrapped up and presented in a very different way than traditional circus.
Forming one coherent show, Sabotage combines different story elements allowing each viewer a different way to engage and absorb the performance in relation to their own points of view.
Directed by Italy’s Firenza Guidi, each performer is given the chance to showcase what makes them unique under the guise of theatrics and dramatics. The outrageously talented performers are breaking barriers and bringing people together through a love of contemporary circus.
“Why Sabotage? ‘Who are the saboteurs?’ I suppose is a slightly easier question,” says Tom Rack, director of Britain’s largest contemporary circus, NoFit State. “The saboteurs are the misfits, the outsiders, the aliens, the alternative people who kind of live on the fringes of society, and they have been marginalised, perhaps slightly disapproved of in some sense. In terms of Sabotage, they are coming together, they are standing up for themselves, they are being heard, they are making a stand, they are being loud and proud, and kind of carrying that message through to the audience.
“Within the show, there are a lot of threads of story that come from the artist’s personal lived experience of whether they had been marginalised or discriminated against. There are various issues of gender and queerness and disability and asylum seekers. We do not want the audience to see disability; we want them to see ability. We want the audience to normalise everybody and everything that they see, because it should be normal. It should be fine to be a cross-dresser or disabled.
“We want the audience to leave feeling uplifted. Feeling kind of woken up, maybe shaken slightly, but with a spring in their steps and a twinkle in their eyes, and you know, put a bit of fun back into their world,” declares Rack.
“We blow a lot of minds, and we bring a lot of joy.”
Tickets €25 to €37.50 from www.giaf.ie
