In this collection of performing arts reviews: an extraordinary circus, three performers exploring the boundaries of dance, and a meeting of minds at Jazzlab.

Pandemic lockdowns brought physical absence, distance – a contortion of the social landscape by decreed isolation of the body. The performers in Circa’s On hurl themselves against that experience, and there might be no better way to mentally re-attune yourself to the world of ordinary human contact than this extraordinary show.

Having reinvented contemporary circus as an aesthetically ambitious artform, the company here demonstrates – every bit as exquisitely as it did in Humans – what can be achieved when uncanny acrobatic prowess meets the poised spatial intelligence of contemporary dance and the intensities of physical theatre.

Eight acrobats dressed as people you might pass on the street dive and tumble around a rectangle. The first force they encounter as they race from the wings is the fundamental slap of gravity. It’s a piece built around weight, in both figurative and literal senses, and under the Jenga tower of its frenetically choreographed circus lies a serenely grounded theatrical foundation.

There’s no fancy apparatus or aerialism in this one, but the ensemble acrobatics provoke more astonishment than many shows with them … Link to full length article at The Age.