Jaw-dropping aerials and gravity-defying acrobatics — Duck Pond is what happens when contemporary circus mashes up Swan Lake, The Ugly Duckling and its own whimsical imaginings into one spectacular show. Photo: Pia Johnson Production Photography.
Wollongong-born and bred circus performer Asha Colless is about to have a full circle moment.
She will be performing in Duck Pond, an acclaimed reimagining of Swan Lake by one of the world’s leading contemporary circus companies, Circa.
It’s not the first time the Illawarra local has appeared in a Circa performance in Wollongong, but circumstances have certainly changed.
Having trained from the age of five at Circus Monoxide in Fairy Meadow, Asha was about 12 when she was first invited to appear in a Circa performance at Illawarra Performing Arts Centre.
“I think it was called 61 Circus Acts in 60 Minutes, and I was one of the Circus Monoxide youth performance troupe members invited to perform at the very start,” she says.
“The fact that I am coming back to IPAC, the very centre where I first performed with Circa, is a full circle moment for me. I am so excited to perform in my hometown, with all my friends and family watching.”
Asha, who went on to train at the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) before joining Circa, stars as the Fairy Swan Mother in the company’s adaptation of the iconic ballet masterpiece, which merges with classic children’s tale The Ugly Duckling and incorporates plenty of original content, too.
“The Fairy Swan Mother role is a narrator character, playing a kind of cupid role in this show,” Asha says.
“She’s all-knowing as she curates the story, not only telling it but getting up to mischief and orchestrating a few twists and turns along the way.”
Throughout the tale of swans and hapless princes, audiences can expect the gamut of circus shenanigans from jaw-dropping aerials to high level acrobatics.
The adaptation defies the conventions of Swan Lake, but Asha reckons the classical ballet set to Tchaikovsky’s iconic score makes for ideal source material.
“It might seem strange to adapt something like Swan Lake to circus, but actually there is a lot of crossover between dance and circus,” Asha says. “They both use the body and movement to express a feeling or idea, but circus brings a fantastical element to the traditional tale, which makes it exciting and takes the audience out of that original story, to tell it in a whole new way.”
Contemporary reimaginings are Circa’s hallmark, though Duck Pond will be the company’s first take on a ballet. For the show, the company has combined traditional elements and the core of the stories, but also breaks away in a big way — especially in the third act.
“There will be some fun surprises and unexpected elements for audiences, but I’m not going to give those away,” Asha says.
Duck Pond takes place at IPAC from Wednesday 22 to Saturday 25 October — book via TicketSearch.
