One of the most risk-taking shows in town right now is a circus—and we’re not necessarily talking about the Dust Palace’s gravity-defying aerial routines.

The WonderWombs is a fearless and occasionally shocking look at women’s issues that are sometimes hard to talk about—body image, shame, sexuality, and consent being only a few.

Its gutsily offbeat mix of acrobatic art, bawdy humour, and sobering social commentary doesn’t always mesh. Still, you’ll get as much of a thrill watching these five women and one nonbinary performer try to pull the bizarre hybrid off as you will watching them twirl at dizzying speeds from all manner of ropes, silks, and poles. At the same time get ready to appreciate how wildly contemporary circus is evolving in this world, and how the form can be used to express very adult themes.

The highest risks—when the troupe pushes the farthest with both its subject matter and its acrobatics—deliver by far the biggest payoffs here. Rochelle Mangan performs a dazzling aerial pole routine, a transcendant vision of spinning flesh, and then suddenly her colleagues throw a sheet bearing words like “you’re too pretty for this” and “you don’t have to” over her body and drag her off. It’s a perfect example of how the Dust Palace can take you from wonder to deep rumination in a matter of seconds.

The key is that these New Zealand performers, as incredibly adept they are at pushing the limits of aerial routines, are not afraid to keep it real. And some of the topics they tackle here often feel painfully, intimately honest. They make themselves vulnerable, but at the same time, with their honed limbs and washboard core muscles, they’re literal models of female power, as well as body and sex-positivity–an apt kickoff to the Cultch’s winter Femme Series…

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