ON FRIDAY November 25 and Saturday 26 at 7.30pm in the Black Box Theatre, Galway Community Circus and Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre presents their new show, The Lost Circus.
The Lost Circus is developed by 100 young Galway Community Circus members with the help of Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre Company and Britain’s Scarabeus Theatre Company. This is a third successful collaboration between Galway Community Circus and Fidget Feet.
This contemporary circus spectacle combines gravity defying aerial dance, daring acrobatics on stilts, and stunning visual images through video projections. The production is funded by the Arts Council Young Ensemble Scheme.
Galway Community Circus is a charity based organisation built on fun, innovation, and a commitment to inspiring and empowering young people through circus arts. They have pioneered the teaching of circus arts to young people since 2002 and offer weekly classes in a range of circus skills, such as acrobatics, aerial, stilt walking and juggling, for young people from five to 23 years of age and adults.
GCC’s Ulla Hokkanen expands on The Lost Circus’ themes and content: “The ideas in the show were all developed by the young people themselves who are our members. It features an assortment of circus and carnival characters who are lost in different worlds. We have different age groups within the company and each of those have their own section within the show.
“One of the worlds portrayed is inspired by Alice in Wonderland so there is a Mad Hatter’s tea-party, and Cheshire cats, and six Alices! Then some of the younger members are doing these zombie characters and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’. The youngest members, our five to seven-year-olds, are doing the Cookie Monster and driving little cars.”
The show sees GCC again collaborate, as in previous years, with Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Company but also joining them this year is Scarabeus Theatre Company. Ulla explains how they came on board.
“Scarabeus are from London and have developed their own unique style of acrobatics and stilt-walking,” she said. “We wanted to bring new elements into the show this year and Fidget Feet had worked with Scarabeus before so they said it would be good for us to bring them in and they could also teach some of our young people advanced skills in stilt walking, so that’s how the connection with them came about.”
The Lost Circus features 100 performers, double the number who were deployed in Galway Community Circus’ show this time last year. It reflects the robust health of GCC and the keen interest being shown from the many children and young adults looking to enrol in their courses.
There are two terms during the year, the autumn term, which culminates with the upcoming show and the spring term which commences in January and for which enrolments are now being invited. Those interested in enrolling with GCC can find details on www.galwaycommunitycircus.com or Facebook. The two big projects of the spring term will be involvement in the St Patrick’s Day Parade and a show in June.
Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre is Ireland’s foremost Aerial Dance Theatre Company based in Westmeath. It has become renowned internationally as a creative organisation that stretches the boundaries between several arts forms, combining aerial skills with contemporary circus and creating theatre fused with aerial dance, music, and video art, making contemporary circus and aerial dance accessible.
Tickets for The Lost Circus are €12/8, or €32 for family ticket (four people ) and are available through the Town Hall Theatre (091 - 569777 or www.tht.ie ). For more information on Galway Community Circus contact 085 - 1117224, email [email protected] or see www.galwaycommunitycircus.com
