Circa contemporary circus brings Beyond to Canberra

Plenty of circus companies have spent the past decade moving away from the traditional big-top performances, putting a more modern spin on the ancient art.

But Brisbane-based circus company Circa's performances take that one step further, using little more than the human body to create heart-stopping and visually stunning works which seemingly push the boundaries of what's possible.

Circa's show S visited Canberra last year, with a show inspired by the 19th letter of the alphabet that left audiences gasping. And this month they're back with one of their newer shows, Beyond.

Having premiered in Berlin in July 2013, Beyond has since visited Germany, the UK, New Zealand, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Scotland.

The show has finally made its way back to home shores, with a packed string of venues including at Canberra Theatre from February 25-28.

Circa ensemble member Rowan Heydon-White describes Beyond as "a show about human and animal".

"Some people have described it as a cross between Darwin theory and Alice in Wonderland, which is a fun thing to play on. But it really just delves into what is human and what is animal and what parts of human are animal."

The new show blends traditional circus acts like trapeze and acrobatics with aerial tissue, Chinese pole and handstand canes, set to a soundtrack that jumps between ballads, electronica and show tunes.

At its core, the show is based on using the human body and pushing it to extremes, in a way that should seem stressful and somewhat awkward, but is instead beautiful.

The fluidity and effortless result between the seven performers comes from an extremely intimate knowledge of each other's bodies which exceeds what most of us would even know about our own.

"We trust each other's bodies, we know how they work, we understand each other's muscles, we understand each other's technique," she says.

"Every person that stands on me stands on my shoulders, but it's different – the way they hold their feet is different, the shape of their legs is different. Everyone in the show, I know the difference in what they need and what they prefer when they're standing on me. So it becomes about learning the tiny parts of the human body.

"I love the way that we push human possibilities and it's beautiful in the way that the acrobats are really gentle and kind to each other while we're doing these incredible feats. So you'll have a guy stand on the side of another guy's head and as an audience you gasp but you don't see it as a painful thing, it's a beautiful thing for some reason."

Setting themselves further apart from their contemporaries, traditional circus gender roles are also fluid in the Circa performances. As one of the company's "strong women", Heydon-White is often the base of acrobatic moves, with the male performers up on her shoulders.

"It's more just about equality for me – it's not about pushing gender politics," she says.

"Circus isn't discriminatory between sexes, it's really about whoever can do the job best. So the guy on top is a really good flier and I get the privilege to be a really good base under him and it's just the way that it works, so it's about gender in bodies rather than pushing gender politics."

To be able to perform in such a way takes "years and years and years of training" but even then, pushing the body to extremes day in and day out undoubtedly puts an incredible amount of strain on the performers.

"A lot of what we do is learning the most efficient way to do what we do. The circus is different to sport where in sport you work and you perform and everything in your life changes for this one event like a game or a race," she says.

"We have to be able to do what we do for six night a week for eight months if we need to. So it has to become part of your lifestyle."

Having been on the road with Beyond for the better part of two years, the group continues to critique and finesse the show.

"We did an eight-month season in Berlin and you can imagine the difference in the show from the beginning to the end – we're always trying to make it better and put more things in it and things that keep us really pushing the boundary as well as really keeping the show fresh," she says.

"For us it feels like a very different show than the show we initially put on. But all those differences come in such minute ways and macro changes – we may change a trick or a little tiny hand gesture."

All of the Circa performers come from circus backgrounds and identify as circus performers, but the final feel of the shows could quite easily be labelled as a different art form: dance.

"I would say Circa is defined as a contemporary circus company, so we're not traditional in the way that we structure our shows or structure our acts," says Heydon-White.

"We blend into a lot of ensemble work which is why I think we get compared sometimes to dance because dance is very ensemble – but using that technique in a circus medium."

Whatever you want to call it, it's a show that Heydon-White labels as one of her favourites.

"It's different to other shows. You just have to see for yourself how we interact and how we blend circus into this authentic medium. I think it's indescribable."