Image: Daniel Boud

Flying Fruit Fly Circus

Spherical

Ordinary Kids doing Extraordinary Things!

The Flying Fruit Fly Circus (FFFC) is Australia’s National Youth Circus, unique in the professional circus landscape, establishing a national and international reputation from their regional home base for over 43 years. Truly cross-border, the FFFC’s academic school is in Wodonga (VIC) and creative headquarters in Albury (NSW).

The FFFC’s unique circus training and performance program has a worldwide reputation for innovation and excellence. The FFFC develops young artists in the creative arts by being one of Australia’s most celebrated producers of contemporary circus works for young people and families, touring nationally and internationally, and as an educator in circus and interdisciplinary art forms. The day-to-day operations are supported by a network of circus and arts professionals and the company continues to be one of the employment pillars that grows the creative industry in the region.

Recent touring and producing achievements include the 2023 premiere of Spherical for the Sydney Opera House 50th anniversary, Girls With Altitude 2022 tour to ten regional venues plus Arts Centre Melbourne; Tempo 2022 at Sydney Opera House; Borderville 2022 which had 9,500 audience members attending shows across Albury Wodonga; Back in the Big Top / Time Flies: Albury Big Top season 2019 and Sydney Festival 2020. In 2024, the Flying Fruit Fly Circus will complete a national tour of Tempo to 13 venues.

    ABOUT THE PROJECT

    Spherical was commissioned by Sydney Opera House as part of its Kids & Families program in its 50th anniversary. It played to sold-out houses in the Studio for two weeks in July 2023. Featuring twelve Flying Fruit Fly Circus young acrobats, it is a 55-minute fast-paced, pseudo-scientific, steam-punk celebration of circus.

    Spherical was originally inspired by the problem with which Jørn Utzon grappled when trying to describe mathematically the organic (now iconic) sail shapes of the Sydney Opera House. Eventually he came up with the Spherical Solution, a simple and elegant answer to a very difficult problem. Here in Albury NSW, in our secret circus science laboratory, we try to find the most difficult answer to a simple problem – we call it the Circus Solution!

    Outside the context of the Sydney Opera House and through the re-rehearsal period pre-tour, Spherical needs minimal adjustment to shift its focus away from Jørn Utzon and toward a generalist ersatz science narrative. All the circus apparatus used in the show are round, including Aerial Lyra, Hoop diving, hula hoops German wheel and spinning web. Add shamanic fire rituals, human teleportation, a belching contraption, and a large red button that must not be pressed, Spherical is magically mad and stupidly spectacular – perfect entertainment for family audiences.

    The original staging maximises audience capacity in a flexible space by playing in the three-quarter round on a raised platform, however it can be reworked for front-on enjoyment.

    Tahni Froudist
    tfroudist@fruitflycircus.com.au