Slava's Snow Show takes clowning out of the circus, and brings it into the theatre. Created by Russian clown Slava Polunin after his performance in Cirque du Soleil's Alegria, the multi award-winning show fuses traditional and contemporary clowning with spectacle.
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It premiered 20 years ago and has previously been to Australia among many other destinations - but this will be its first time in Canberra.
Derek Scott has been performing with Slava's Snow Show on and off for the past decade. The Canadian actor, comedian and director says, ''It's a hard show to describe, it's one of those things where it's hard to compare it to something else. Slava really created a genre of his own.''
Pressed, Scott says, ''It's a visual journey that is very dreamlike and interactive: certainly not what you would expect from a traditional clown show.
''There's a snow storm you will have never experienced in Canberra - on stage and in the audience. There's bubbles, there's clowns, there's a boat made out of a bed: a lot of visions.''
It sounds like a dream.
''Exactly!''
He says Slava's Snow Show is a bit like an abstract painting: the artist provides something and then each audience member brings to it their own experience and interpretation.
Polunin is not on this tour and Scott is taking his place in the show.
''I'm the yellow clown, the one you follow through - Slava's role. There's also a bunch of green clowns.''
But, he says, there will be none of the pie-in-the-face style of humour.
''It's not just one level of slapstick,'' he says.
''Like a good play, the audience will go through a whole voyage of emotion.''
As well as laughter, there is also a lot of poignancy, he says.
''The poignancy comes from the audience perspective.''
And it seems to have wide appeal, transcending boundaries of culture and language. Slava's Snow Show has played in 120 cities around the world including seasons on Broadway and in the West End.
Scott, 51, grew up in Alberta, Canada and studied both the Lecoq method of physical acting and the more conventional script-based kind. He first came to Australia to 1988 to perform in World Expo in Brisbane and ended up staying to create the Brisbane International Comedy Bonanza - ''the first new festival in 27 years in Brisbane''. In 1992 he went to Spain to continue his career. A speaker of French, German, Spanish and a little Russian as well as English, he's done everything from Shakespeare to movies to TV programs to one-man performances, and it was the last that got him in with Polunin, whom he had heard of but never met or seen perform.
''Slava saw me in a couple of shows in Europe, I was doing some of my stuff in a high-end variety show in Germany, where they still have vaudeville houses,'' he says.
''After one of the shows he invited me to come to Russia and perform with him. I said OK and the next thing I got my ticket and visa and was off to Moscow to spend two weeks performing with Slava.''
It went very well.
''He asked me to continue with the company and play the lead role: they were going to New York.''
''I started out as an actor and still consider myself an actor,'' he says.
''Clowning is just a style of acting … I try to make it true and alive on every night.''
And in Slava's Snow Show, he says, unlike a play, where lines and moves are set, there is freedom to respond to the mood of the audience and to fellow performers.
''It gives you the freedom to be alive every night; you can even go left when you're supposed to go right.''
Scott has brought his wife Brenda - also Canadian - on tour with him.
''I just got married two years ago,'' he says.
''She ran a performing arts centre and was in Los Angeles looking for shows.''
And she happened to see him and his act.
''She picked up both.''
Slava's Snow Show is on at the Canberra Theatre from July 3 to 7. Tickets $59-$109. Bookings: 6275 2700 or via the website.
