Featuring a breath-taking mix of acrobatics, surprising aerial feats and masterful juggling, The Exploded Circus weaves a story without words, where six women come together to seek order in the chaos and create a new normal. We spoke to Mimbre’s Joint Artistic Director Lina Johansson to find out more.
The Exploded Circus is at Live in the Square, Grosvenor Square 1st – 5th August 2018.
The Exploded Circus is coming to London as part of a UK Tour, what can you tell us about it?
The Exploded Circus is a visually stunning contemporary circus performance, with a story about change, hope and what to do when your world seems to fall apart! The performance plays out on an astonishing set where an explosion has been frozen in time – all the remnants of a big top caught mid-air. We follow the journeys of the six female circus performers who arrive into this beautiful mess and are forced to work together to create a new normal…
(I’ve been lucky enough to work with an incredible range of performers, including aerial artists, jugglers and acrobats – mixing impressive feats with physical storytelling.)
How does the narrative blend with the performance in The Exploded Circus?
Being set in a devastated circus, the skills of the performers become a natural vehicle to drive the story forward: the juggler collecting her scattered clubs with intricate manipulation skills which enable her to connect with the audience again, the aerialist taking out her frustration about the disorder with an aggressive silk act, the clown using the change as a chance to change her status.
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Circus skills naturally hold so much expression around risk, trust and control, which I have woven into the story, as well as using them to create the wow-factor.
You’ve amazingly teamed up with Loren Elstein and Quinta, how has that collaboration worked and can you tell us more about it?
The idea for The Exploded Circus was dreamed up together with Loren and Quinta in the first place and they are such inspiring collaborators. Working with them from the start has allowed set, sound, story and circus skills to develop very much hand-in-hand, allowing one to influence the other and then back again. As well as providing a beautiful soundtrack, Quinta and I have also played with interactive sound equipment, using techniques such as Mogees to create sound from within the set. The relationship with music is of course crucial to drive the feeling and the atmosphere, but the risks that are taken with the circus skills means that timings can’t be calculated in the same way as dance for example, so it is a constant give and take, and that becomes part of the process.
Loren’s visual approach and eye for detail always brings new ideas to how I approach directing circus – as well as creating a world, the choreography has truly grown out of the design.
With the set-design for The Exploded Circus we have 144 things hanging in the air, with everything from trapezes to umbrellas, box office doors to a carousel horse, costumes and tea-cups – all embraced by the choreography and skill-world of the performers. Supported of course by an intricate plan implemented by our technical and rigging team and a lot of hidden strings…!
Tell us about the London location, how does this unusual space complement the performance?
I think it is going to look fantastic in Grosvenor Square: the stage framing the stunning set and the park providing such a lovely space for the audience to spend an evening in this glorious summer! We are also bringing another Mimbre show to the square, Wondrous Strange, our energetic, beautiful and highly original Royal Shakespeare Company commission. Midsummer Night Fairies will spread out across the square, Lady Macbeth might be found lurking among the trees and Kings will fight for the crown in our fast, acrobatic interpretation of the Histories …. it’s Shakespeare as you’ve never seen it before, and it’s on the week after The Exploded Circus!
Why did you think it was important to have an all-female cast?
There has been a recent trend with contemporary circus where a lot of the bigger scale performances have been performed with all-male casts or a heavy majority of male performers and I think it’s important to give a bit of counterbalance to that. In The Exploded Circus we have some of the UK’s finest female circus performers – as well as French and Canadian – providing a wide range of circus skills: rope, acrobatics, silks, juggling, aerial hoop and Chinese diving hoops, rings, trick bike and slack wire. To add to that they are also really funny! Being the 250th anniversary of circus this year, it also felt right to celebrate the fantastic and colourful history of women in circus!
What would you say to anyone who is thinking of coming along to The Exploded Circus?
Don’t hesitate – book your tickets, come along, bring some friends and family and make it a lovely night out. Both shows are an overindulgence for the senses (in a good way) and the feedback from audience and reviewers has been so amazing; real appreciation across all ages and people mentioning tears, laughter and a ‘life-affirming conclusion’!
