Like going on a magic carpet ride, graduates of the Border’s Flying Fruit Fly Circus take the simple act of sitting on a piece of furniture and turn it into a self-reflective and transcendent journey.
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The newest show from the circus school titled Stunt Lounge was created by alumni Darcy Grant and also stars former students who finished their studies within the last two years.
Teagan Leslie, Aj Saltalamacchia, Jackson Manson, Jess Mews and Zachariah Johnson all spent their formative years learning how to jump and tumble at the Albury-based regional circus school.
The piece follows the five as the enter a room with an old leathery couch with worn out seats which looks like it came off a street curb.
The sofa is a vehicle for the performers to deal with their thoughts and feelings associated with approaching adulthood.
The group try on old suits and slippers and attempt to understand what it means to wear them without necessarily growing into them.
It’s heavy material for a group which is clearly young, some not even in their 20s such as Leslie who was 17 for most of the time it took to put the show together, but has also experienced a lot.
Talking candidly after the second rehearsal for a pair of shows at MAMA, the performers said they were not even sure what they would do after the tour ended.
Mews said after Albury they would jet-set to Cambodia for three weeks and hopefully afterwards the show would get picked up by other festivals.
Johnson, who has a flair for tricks with a bottle, deadpanned he might have to do bar work.
Luckily the thoughts of what might come after is overshadowed by the enjoyment of modifying the show to fit into the MAMA foyer, which is relatively small compared to its last two locations at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and Sydney Opera House.
Mews said her favourite act of the show was between her and Saltalamacchia.
The act in question is an intimate hula-hoop scene between the two who are left all alone.
“We get to be ourselves on stage and have lots of laughs and smiles,” Mews said.
The unheralded sixth star of the show, however, is the lounge itself.
Throughout the performance it is picked up, dropped and dragged all over without busting a splinter.
Fruit Fly artistic director Jodie Farrugia said it was bought secondhand.
“We bought it cheap and nasty and we had a technical designer on the show who basically reinforced it to make it acrobatic safe,” she said.
- See gallery online at www.bordermail.com.au