Circus Oz - Revision history

Djando: /* Facing an Uncertain Future */

2025-10-28T00:59:42Z

‎Facing an Uncertain Future

Djando at 15:43, 13 August 2023

2023-08-13T15:43:07Z

Djando: /* Facing an Uncertain Future */

2022-09-04T17:22:44Z

‎Facing an Uncertain Future

Djando: /* Circus Oz Today */

2022-09-04T17:20:07Z

‎Circus Oz Today

Djando: /* Circus Oz Today */

2022-09-04T17:19:10Z

‎Circus Oz Today

Djando: /* Innovation And Continuity: A Cultural Phenomenon */

2022-09-04T17:16:16Z

‎Innovation And Continuity: A Cultural Phenomenon

Djando: /* Image Gallery */

2022-09-04T17:13:48Z

‎Image Gallery

Djando: /* Innovation And Continuity: A Cultural Phenomenon */

2022-09-01T05:36:34Z

‎Innovation And Continuity: A Cultural Phenomenon

Djando at 05:34, 1 September 2022

2022-09-01T05:34:25Z

Djando: /* Growing Up */

2022-08-31T22:55:14Z

‎Growing Up

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 Yet, on December 10, 2021, it was announced in the press that a decision had been taken to close Circus Oz: The Company had been placed on Fair Notice by the Major Performing Arts funding program in 2017 after successive financial losses starting back in 2013. Circus Oz's governance was singled out as the reason for this problem: The Major Performing Arts funding program demanded a change of governance and suspended Circus Oz funding.
-As a result, Circus Oz had to put its activities on a hiatus, and launched a successful press campaign with international ramifications. The organization eventually elected a new Board of Directors. At the end of the 2021/22 financial year, Circus Oz remained solvent and was seen as viable as a "going concern;" however, it still had no paid staff, remained unfunded, had uncertainty regarding its Collingwood lease, and had limited finances or cash reserve. Nonetheless, Circus Oz still announces an upcoming reopening (as per January 2022).
+As a result, Circus Oz had to put its activities on a hiatus, and launched a successful press campaign with international ramifications. The organization eventually elected a new Board of Directors. At the end of the 2021/22 financial year, Circus Oz remained solvent and was seen as viable as a "going concern;" however, it still had no paid staff, remained unfunded, had uncertainty regarding its Collingwood lease, and had limited finances or cash reserve. Nonetheless, Circus Oz bounced back, and, to everyone relief, it reopened in 2022. Yet, as of 2025, its website remains dormant...
 ==Image Gallery==

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 [[File:Oz_Logo_color.png|right|400px]]The origins of Circus Oz can be traced directly back to the new Australian theatre of the late sixties and early seventies.  The ideas that informed the theatre of that time (the development of an Australian voice, ensemble playing and group creativity, heightened and exuberant physicality, an interest in contemporary international trends, breaking down the barriers between spectator and performer, an exploration of comedy, populism, overt political stands and a strong focus on the performer) were integral to the philosophical base upon which Circus Oz was founded.  Many of the original members of Circus Oz were active in the new wave of Australian performance and brought to the company attitudes that were forged and developed during that time.
 === From "New Circus" To "Circus Oz" ===
 Founded in December 1977, with its first performance season in March 1978, Circus Oz was the amalgamation of two already well known groups&mdash;Soapbox Circus, a roadshow set up by the Australian Performing Group (APG) in 1976, and the New Ensemble Circus, a continuation of the New Circus, established in Adelaide in 1974.  Between them, these two groups had performed over seven hundred times to an audience of more than 300,000.
 [[Image:Circus_Oz_Founding_Members.jpg|Circus Oz's Founding Members|thumb|left|400px]]

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 Yet, on December 10, 2021, it was announced in the press that a decision had been taken to close Circus Oz: The Company had been placed on Fair Notice by the Major Performing Arts funding program in 2017 after successive financial losses starting back in 2013. Circus Oz's governance was singled out as the reason for this problem: The Major Performing Arts funding program demanded a change of governance and suspended Circus Oz funding.
-As a resuly, Circus Oz had to suspend its activities, and launched a successful press campaign with international ramifications. The organization eventually elected a new Board of Directors. At the end of the 2021/22 financial year, Circus Oz remained solvent and was seen as viable as a "going concern;" however, it still had no paid staff, remained unfunded, had uncertainty regarding its Collingwood lease, and had limited finances or cash reserve. Nonetheless, Circus Oz still announces an upcoming reopening (as per January 2022).
+As a result, Circus Oz had to put its activities on a hiatus, and launched a successful press campaign with international ramifications. The organization eventually elected a new Board of Directors. At the end of the 2021/22 financial year, Circus Oz remained solvent and was seen as viable as a "going concern;" however, it still had no paid staff, remained unfunded, had uncertainty regarding its Collingwood lease, and had limited finances or cash reserve. Nonetheless, Circus Oz still announces an upcoming reopening (as per January 2022).
 ==Image Gallery==

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 It is a tribute to the enduring strength and relevance of the original principles of the company that, even though there are few people left from the original 1978 group and that several hundreds of individuals have worked with the company since its creation, the shows the group presents have continued to be as consistent and vital as ever.  Its twenty-first birthday season at the Melbourne Town Hall (where it often performs when in its home town) was enormously successful, both in terms of box office and critical response.
-[[File:Mason_West_Rola_Bola_2010.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Circus Oz in 2010]]Probably the group’s major achievement is that it has lasted so long, and as healthily, as it has.  More than four decades on, Circus Oz has toured every State and Territory of the Commonwealth, performed in 26 countries on five continents, been seen at three Adelaide Festivals, broken box office records at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, represented Australia at scores of international festivals, toured Arnhem Land in a DC3, was the first circus in history to perform on three continents in one year, has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Broadway in New York City, at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and in a glass opera house in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest.
+[[File:Mason_West_Rola_Bola_2010.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Mason West & Bec Matthews at Circus Oz (2010)]]Probably the group’s major achievement is that it has lasted so long, and as healthily, as it has.  More than four decades on, Circus Oz has toured every State and Territory of the Commonwealth, performed in 26 countries on five continents, been seen at three Adelaide Festivals, broken box office records at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, represented Australia at scores of international festivals, toured Arnhem Land in a DC3, was the first circus in history to perform on three continents in one year, has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Broadway in New York City, at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and in a glass opera house in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest.
 While Circus Oz is more circus than it is anything else, it simultaneously embraces and argues with a range of traditions and forms, all at the same time: circus itself, music hall, cabaret, variety, popular music, knockabout comedy, movement, visual and music theatre and physical performance.  As with all popular and contemporary forms throughout history, it has been an artistic currawong (the Australian magpie), always more excited by the next astonishing and unlikely juxtaposition than questions of consistency or continuity.

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 It is a tribute to the enduring strength and relevance of the original principles of the company that, even though there are few people left from the original 1978 group and that several hundreds of individuals have worked with the company since its creation, the shows the group presents have continued to be as consistent and vital as ever.  Its twenty-first birthday season at the Melbourne Town Hall (where it often performs when in its home town) was enormously successful, both in terms of box office and critical response.
-[[Image:Hazel_Bock_foot-juggling_(2010).jpg|thumb|left|400px|Circus Oz in 2010]]Probably the group’s major achievement is that it has lasted so long, and as healthily, as it has.  More than four decades on, Circus Oz has toured every State and Territory of the Commonwealth, performed in 26 countries on five continents, been seen at three Adelaide Festivals, broken box office records at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, represented Australia at scores of international festivals, toured Arnhem Land in a DC3, was the first circus in history to perform on three continents in one year, has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Broadway in New York City, at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and in a glass opera house in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest.
+[[File:Mason_West_Rola_Bola_2010.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Circus Oz in 2010]]Probably the group’s major achievement is that it has lasted so long, and as healthily, as it has.  More than four decades on, Circus Oz has toured every State and Territory of the Commonwealth, performed in 26 countries on five continents, been seen at three Adelaide Festivals, broken box office records at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, represented Australia at scores of international festivals, toured Arnhem Land in a DC3, was the first circus in history to perform on three continents in one year, has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Broadway in New York City, at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and in a glass opera house in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest.
 While Circus Oz is more circus than it is anything else, it simultaneously embraces and argues with a range of traditions and forms, all at the same time: circus itself, music hall, cabaret, variety, popular music, knockabout comedy, movement, visual and music theatre and physical performance.  As with all popular and contemporary forms throughout history, it has been an artistic currawong (the Australian magpie), always more excited by the next astonishing and unlikely juxtaposition than questions of consistency or continuity.

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 === Innovation And Continuity: A Cultural Phenomenon ===
-[[File:Circus_Oz_Acrobats_(2010).jpg|thumb|right|300px|Circus Oz Acrobats (2010)]]Circus Oz has become as much a seamless part of the circus continuum as it is a critique of or theft from it.  At the most obvious level, as with traditional circus, there has always been an impressive number of aerial routines: tight wire, trapeze, slack wire, cloud swing, web rope, and roof walk are standards; there are clowns; there are acts of physical skill and dexterity&mdash;but the parallels are more fundamental.
+Circus Oz has become as much a seamless part of the circus continuum as it is a critique of or theft from it.  At the most obvious level, as with traditional circus, there has always been an impressive number of aerial routines: tight wire, trapeze, slack wire, cloud swing, web rope, and roof walk are standards; there are clowns; there are acts of physical skill and dexterity&mdash;but the parallels are more fundamental.
-By revivifying the tricks and ambiance of circus (and in response to the development of the bubble gum version), Circus Oz has revised, extended and made relevant a form in danger of withering away or being co-opted by the entertainment industry.
+[[File:Oz_Big_Top.jpg|thumb|400px|right|Circus Oz Big Top (c.2015)]]By revivifying the tricks and ambiance of circus (and in response to the development of the bubble gum version), Circus Oz has revised, extended and made relevant a form in danger of withering away or being co-opted by the entertainment industry.
 It has searched for and found the key elements of the form it once (always lovingly) parodied: the theatricalisation of risk, the manifestation of danger, the sense of circus as contagious virus, the edgy, larrikin, exotic, eccentric, outsider element that made the nineteenth century travelling shows simultaneously attractive and scary to the communities through which they passed.

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 Image:Hazel_Bock_foot-juggling_(2010).jpg|Hazel Bock, Foot Juggling (2010)
 Image:Mason_West_Rola_Bola_2010.jpg|Mason West & Bec Matthews, Rola Bola (2010)
 File:Oz_Logo_color.png|Circus Oz logo (c.2015)
 </Gallery>

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 Image:Circus_Oz_Hoop_diving_act_(1990).jpg|Circus Oz Hoop-Diving Act (1990)
 File:Oz_Poster_1993.jpg|Circus Oz Poster (1993)
 Image:Circus_Oz_Acrobats_(2010).jpg|Circus Oz Acrobats (2010)
 Image:Flip_Kammerer_Strap_Act_(2010).jpg|Flip Kammerer, Strap Act (2010)

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 These principles have, more or less, continued to inform the group’s work throughout its history.  The group has become more specialised and structured but, apart from that, the original coda remains.  What began as an APG project continues to manifest the same spirit that inhabited the work of three decades past.  Although Circus Oz may be one of the few surviving remnants of the seventies, the group continues to demonstrate that the values espoused then retain all their vigour and relevance now.
-[[File:Oz_Poster_1993.jpg|thumb|right|300px]]Circus Oz Poster (1993]]The most significant developmental elements in the early years of Circus Oz were the 32-week 1979 season at the Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant in Melbourne, the Chinese acrobatic master classes, and the group’s relations with the [[Flying Fruit Fly Circus]], a children’s circus based in New South Wales.  Still to be seen in today’s shows is a professional culture developed through that interminable season (and never subsequently lost), along with many of the technical skills learnt from the Chinese acrobats with whom the group trained in 1983/84 and again in 1985 (hoop-diving, Chinese pole and group bicycle to name a few).
+The most significant developmental elements in the early years of Circus Oz were the 32-week 1979 season at the Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant in Melbourne, the Chinese acrobatic master classes, and the group’s relations with the [[Flying Fruit Fly Circus]], a children’s circus based in New South Wales.  Still to be seen in today’s shows is a professional culture developed through that interminable season (and never subsequently lost), along with many of the technical skills learnt from the Chinese acrobats with whom the group trained in 1983/84 and again in 1985 (hoop-diving, Chinese pole and group bicycle to name a few).
-In the early eighties, the relationship between the "Fruities" (the members of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus) was usefully symbiotic: not only did they share a big top but many Circus Oz members taught there and many of the second generation Circus Oz performers were ex-Fruities.
+[[File:Oz_Poster_1993.jpg|thumb|right|300px]]Circus Oz Poster (1993]]In the early eighties, the relationship between the "Fruities" (the members of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus) was usefully symbiotic: not only did they share a big top but many Circus Oz members taught there and many of the second generation Circus Oz performers were ex-Fruities.
 Since the mid-eighties, when contemporary circus and related physical performance really began to take off, Circus Oz has enjoyed mutually fruitful relations with the myriad of smaller groups that have emerged.  The fairly constant movement of people and exchange of ideas between Circus Oz and other performance groups like Bizircus, Club Swing, and Rock’n’Roll Circus, and  Circus Monoxide, indicates the energetic growth of a country-wide physical performance ecosystem that has developed on the basis of values similar to many of those espoused by Circus Oz.  This ecosystem has contributed to, and benefited from, the continuing vitality of Circus Oz.