The interrobang can also suggest incredulity and shock. That might have accompanied the reaction of Warehouse Circus to the COVID-19 pandemic.

September of 2020 marked Warehouse Circus's 30th anniversary but celebrations and Interrobang!? had to be postponed. The circus has weathered other crises. It's gone through periods of having no fixed abode and money problems that at one point led to an awareness raising non-stop 24-hour Circus-A-Thon in Garema Place. And it has survived the coronavirus.

Warehouse Circus has come a long way since it was formed in 1990. It's become a key arts organisation in the ACT regular funding and is an established part of the ACT cultural landscape.

While there are 17 performers in Interrobang!?, more than 400 people - children and adults - have been trained each week in circus skills at Warehouse Circus's two locations in Chifley and Kaleen. Some do it because they want to attend the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne, others do it to build up a skill or simply for enjoyment. There are classes for people over 50 and for people with complex disabilities.

Warehouse Circus's artistic director Tom Davis says he worked with show directors Ashley Cox and Idris Stanton to ensure that Interrobang!? tied in with the anniversary: managing the pressure of expectations and exploring the legacy of what came before.

"There are sticky little notes from previous shows in this one," he says - people, acts, costumes, music.

There will be aerial acts, juggling, and more in what Davis says is an action-packed 55-minute show.

Canberra-born Davis quit gymnastics when he was "12 or 13 ... It wasn't for me''. He learned pass juggling and other skills and didn't leave until he moved to Melbourne in 2007 to study at the National Institute of Circus Arts.

He's had an international performing career and returned to Warehouse Circus in 2008, working on and off as a trainer and production manager. In 2020 he became artistic director and was also acting executive director while Aleshia Johnson was on maternity leave.

Working in large part remotely from Melbourne, he helped steer the circus through the coronavirus, working with the staff to conduct online classes and raise funds.

Karen Yaldren, a friend of Young, was 18 and in her final year of Copland College when she joined the circus, a few months after it began. Yaldren says Young, also a teenager, had been training with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury before moving to Canberra.

Young missed the circus and started Warehouse Circus at the Belconnen Community Centre with a three-month IMPACT grant and money from the Canberra Labor Club. Things grew from there.

Like Davis, Yaldren dropped gymnastics for circus, She found circus "a natural progression" in using many of the skills she had developed as well as learning new ones.

"I did lots of tumbling, stilt walking, club juggling with a lot of different people," she says.

She's worked as a trainer and administrator at the circus and says from the start she found it "the most inclusive environment I've ever seen".

"I'm passionate about what circus can do for young people," she says: giving them a voice, developing relationships and skills and autonomy, playing, working with others.

"All the things you're supposed to do to become an intelligent human."

Plans are afoot for more performances this year as well as celebrating three decades of Warehouse Circus in September. Better late than never.

Interrobang!? is on at Belconnen Arts Centre on January 30 and February 4 to 6 at 7pm and February 6 at 12.30pm. Tickets $20/$15. belcoarts.com.au/interrobang.