Circus Oz

So I, learned with three lemons, but at, and at the time there was also street before like Rumpel was out there.

That was the first time I saw Rumpel, um, doing his Rumpelstiltskin doing his jester, um, crazy long ass shows and the banana brothers, which was a precursor Mike Finch who went on to, um, uh, start Circus Monoxide and was artistic director of Circus Oz for many, many years.

He was doing a three-person juggling, you know, knock the cigarette out of the mouth sort of, you know, rubber chicken sort of juggling street show called the Banana Brothers, which I still remember lines from.

And I sort of just watched all these street performers every day, learned how to juggle.

Yeah.

Mining town in Western Queensland.

We, we maybe in 2004 or something like that, we played there on a regional tour with Circus Oz.

And my memory of it is that it is a few circles of houses around an enormous hole in the ground, which is the mine and, It's probably a bit more than that, but in my mind, now that I'm thinking back at it, there was like, that's what it was.

... it's my favorite price.

We're gonna be on with the Australian Ballet School, Bell Shakespeare, Opera Australia, Melbourne Theatre Company, Jude Pearl, Circus Oz, Robyn Fox, a whole bunch of artists.

It's gonna be a lot of fun, Matt.

Can I ask you a question, Rich? That's a really, really impressive lineup of people.

that's nice, very much.

So, yeah, I've done all kinds of things like Circus Oz.

I've done Bolesk.

I've done Shakespeare.

And an opportunity came up with our, the building we're in at 50 Perry Street in Collingwood.

This is the home of Circus Oz, and due to a, a number of different events, it is still their home, but there was a space for a different lead tenant.

And Richard was able to see the potential of that space and what it would mean for the circus sector if someone like the Flying Fruit Fly Circus were to take it over and lead it to be a space for circus artists of both young and old and in between.

And it was a really big leap, the biggest risk or biggest shift in the company's, like, almost 50-year history.

These are all really incredible circus apparatus that are quite, you know, they're larger than life, and having the space there for circus artists to practice them means that those art forms continue, those dis- disciplines continue.

Yeah, that's just been, like, really great to see artists of all stages of their practice, whether they're emerging or established, coming and, and using that and then connecting on the floor and sharing the knowledge as well of the art form.

And are, are they left over from, from Circus Oz? 'Cause that would be, I assume, pretty exciting for emerging artists to be able to use the trapeze that has been used by incredible performers years earlier.

That, that's, seems very special.