Kilter - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Finding balance in life is not easy. You want to spend time with friends, but you need to study. You want to have that double chocolate chip ice-cream but you should really go to the gym. It is hard work, and in One Fell Swoop's new circus show, Kilter, the science and ideals behind balance are brilliantly brought to the surface.

Using a never-before seen circus apparatus called a "slackboat", performers Charice Rust and Jonathan Morgan offer a refreshing perspective on what circus can be. The duo take their time as they work through each act, making sure that every piece of equipment or prop is utilised to its full potential, which at one point even includes eating it. It's a tight production that keeps the momentum going throughout with the performers acutely aware of when it is time to move on to something else.

By A Thread review | Gasworks Arts Park

Circus doesn’t come as bare as One Fell Swoop’s By A Thread. Presented at Gasworks Arts Park, the entire show consists of one prop: a 30 metre piece of rope held up by two pulleys. The way in which the rope is used throughout the show, in both a literal sense and a metaphorical one, leaves audiences thoroughly entertained with the opportunity to consider the relationships in their life and what trust means to them. 

The spool of rope is used as a representation of trust; trust that the performers place in each other and the trust that we place in people in our own lives. The seven emerging circus artists (Jonathan Morgan, Charice Rust, Sarah Berrell, Ryan Darwin, Ela Bartilomo, Hamish Norris, and Jordan O’Brien from Melbourne’s National Institute of Circus Arts) completely and utterly depend on each other to execute their routines as they are constantly being flung into the air, spun around and dropping into each other’s arms. 

The ensemble work confidently as a cohesive team who are able to communicate with each other by just a glance and know exactly where each of them are at any given time. Their amusing and playful acts include an imaginative interpretation of pass the parcel and a brilliant see-saw routine that showcases their immense flexibility, agility and strength. There is a strong feeling of innocence and openness flowing throughout the show but there are numerous times where more complex thoughts are explored.