Image: Angel Leggas

Oozing Future

Apocrypha

Oozing Future is a circus and physical theatre company based in Naarm/Melbourne, with a focus on exploring provocative artistic concepts through multidisciplinary performance.

Led by artistic director Mitch Jones, the company seeks to develop new audiences for circus by centring theatricality, production design and experimentation within their practice. While building diverse project specific teams of performers, designers, directors and producers, they bring an ethos of humanity, empathy and innovation to their pursuit of artistic excellence. By disrupting and complexifying the expectations that audiences and presenters have about circus, they want to encourage creative growth within the sector.

Their first work AutoCannibal premiered at TheatreWorks in Melbourne 2019, then toured to Sydney Festival 2021 and Darwin Festival 2022. Reviewers commented that it was “the kind of work that gives Melbourne its reputation for considered, influential independent theatre” (Tim Byrne, Time Out), and called it “an imaginative hybrid performance, crawling with dark and scintillating ideas” (Cameron Woodhead, The Age).

A second site specific work Strange Chaos was performed at the Adelaide Fringe 2023, utilising a DIY/found space approach to turn a carpark into a theatre and perform a clown show of “exquisite beauty and flawless artistic precision” (David Cronin, The Clothesline) in the headlights of a ute.

Their new ensemble work Apocrypha is currently in development, with funding from Creative Australia and Creative Victoria, and will premiere at Northcote Town Hall in October 2024, supported by Darebin Arts.

    ABOUT THE PROJECT

    Apocrypha is an ensemble show for a cast of five that blends circus, physical theatre and contemporary dance to create a unique and enthralling performance.

    With an excellent team of designers and performers, Apocrypha will invite audiences into a visually poetic and emotionally moving theatrical experience exploring concepts of identity, sexuality and community. Directed by Mitch Jones, the team includes well-known circus performers Adam Malone, Bridie Hooper, ballet luminary Yui Masukawa, set and costumes by Romanie Harper, and lighting by Jenny Hector.

    The title refers to early religious texts that were left out of the bible, and has been used as a departure point to explore hidden knowledge, mystical study and secrets that we keep from ourselves. Audiences will encounter a beautiful world of evocative symbolism and implied narrative that stimulates reflection and conversation long after the conclusion of the piece.

    A key theme is the poetic ability to transmute depravity, dispossession and ugliness into beauty and a sense of belonging. The show resolves with a powerful message of solidarity and chosen community, which speaks to the shared experience of trying to find place or peace in a world that treats differences harshly.

    With substantial research behind the unique and original ideas brought to the stage, and produced by the world class team at Lauren Eisinger Productions, this promises to be essential viewing for those interested in the theatrical possibilities of Australian contemporary circus.

    Dans Maree Sheehan
    dans@laureneisinger.com