© photo Andre Baumecker
© photo Ponch Hawkes
VIDEO
acrobat: PropagandA
Founded by the australian acrobats Simon Yates & Jo-Ann Lancaster in 1996, acrobat lives in Albury, New South Wales. A big house, a large caravan, a trampoline, wooden sheds, railway tracks behind the backyard...
acrobat is a very unique antipodean mix of circus and theatre, with a sharp look on its existence... and ours.
Yates (born in 1972) and Lancaster (born in 1966) have been practicing many different circus techniques in their Albury backyard for years, and that rigourous physical discipline has had a deep impact on their everyday life. And their everyday life inspires what they do on stage: often autobiographical, always made of low-tech and cheap elements, a set like a bric-a-brac, very simple costumes if any, no escalation, but bodies and beings enduring the world's gravity, with a devastating sense of humour and self derision. Raw and compact physical theatre, naked to the bone, where effort is the mirror of our contemporary contradictions
After smaller, poorer, cheaper, they're back in family with Grover & Fidel, their two young sons, and two strange comrades, to lead a PropagandA campaign of its own kind. A couple of naive and athletic revolutionaries with unwavering ideals, invites you to a demonstration of new methods to fight injustice, promote solidarity and energize class struggle!
Be kind. Eat your veggies. Ride a bike. Garden nude.
The revolution starts here.
PRESS REVIEWS
Combining charm (a lot), virtuosity (enormously) and invention (passionately) with modesty is not given to everyone. That's the magical trinity of "Propaganda" by the australian company Acrobat, into its set of office lamps and green plants.Behind its striking title, born after a trip to Cuba, it's all the crafts of art and everyday life poetry that compose a wonderful blend. The virtuosity of circus in its most classical sense - the feats are not only physically unbelievable but also original - is feeding each act of this muscly show with radical extravaganza. But the most of this highly talented little troupe is to present its undone reverse, its squashed face at the same time... To fall flat on one's back requires another technique, as skillful as the feat itself. Reversed like a skin, sometimes grimacing like a cartoon, the performance shows a double face, half grave, half clown. Le Monde
Circus has nothing to do here with athlets flying in the air in glittery and shiny costumes. Here, magic is passing a message. Through acts that are in turns puzzling, symbolic and sarcastic, these Australians settle the score with cupidity, with pollution killing mermaids, with sheeplike moronic-state. Bodies carved like Arno Breker's sculpture, these free-thinkers with unbridled creativity and assumed nudity, encourage the audience to take off its conformity. Libération
Innovative, daring, funny, virtuoso, inventive, original, surprising... Many positive adjectives come to mind to describe that show. A rare and precious moment. Le Progrès
They're funny, intelligent and, most importantly, good at what they do. Impressive tumbling, heart-in-mouth slackwire, plus rope, pole and trapeze routines aim to re-educate the masses, albeit in an absolutely enjoyable manner. The Age
"Propaganda" presents the audience with a list of morals, instructions, rules and suggestions, an overwhelming barrage of the contradictory information that modern life presents to us on a daily basis. There are several layers of meaning beyond the astounding technical skill of the performers. The struggle of obligation, the quest for happiness in the moment, the mass media propaganda generated to keep the drive of consumerism alive and a quiet plea to take only what you need. Australian Stage
TECHNICAL INFORMATIONS
- Duration: 65 mn without interval.
- Seat capacity: about 500 spectators (frontal).
- Indoors only.
- Suitable for all audiences starting 8 years old.
- Minimum space required: 10 m width x 13 m depth x 7 m height.
- Set up: 2 full days, opening night on day 3.
- Touring team: 8 persons (including 2 children).
Download more PropagandA informations
Download PropagandA's technical rider
With: Simon Yates / Jo-Ann Lancaster / Grover Lancaster-Cole / Fidel Lancaster-Cole
Technicians: Ryan Taplin & Scott Grayland
Music: Tim Barrass
Production: acrobat + Marguerite Pepper, Australia
A HotHouse Theatre commission.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its funding and advisory body.
Avec le soutien de La Brèche, centre des arts du cirque de Basse Normandie.
