Marrying precision and poignancy, Alula Cyr’s debut production celebrates female strength with awe-inspiring acrobatics and synchronised displays of sisterhood. Hyena is an exciting whirlwind of women, wheels, circus, dance and song. Here, the world’s first all-female Cyr wheel trio unveil inventive and previously untried forms of expression using the Cyr.
Hyena is a unique and profound experience that illuminates the thrill of physical ritual. Fiona, Jess and Lil trained in gymnastics, dance and music before studying together at the National Centre for Circus Arts from where they graduated in 2015 with a combined mission to bring more femalecentric circus to the UK.
Including never-before-seen set pieces such as the ‘Cyr Ball’ – a ball created with all the wheels to form a sphere in and around which the trio perform – Hyena is the boisterous and playful culmination of three years’ research into pioneering new ways of working with one of circus’s fastest evolving disciplines.
Co-creator Lil Rice explains, Hyena is a show about womanhood – it’s about beauty, power and the thin line we walk between being a human and a wild animal. We wanted to make a show that would inspire everyone, particularly women and girls, to find their voices and stand together.
The title Hyena references the matriarchal social system of brown spotted hyenas, which offered the company a reference point for the fierce and complex friendships formed between women that are explored in the show. Patterns of conflict and resolution draw from the trio’s own tribal solidarity.
