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Melbourne Festival. 10-26 Oct 2014

China+Australia CircusFamilies

Nanjing Project

A Melbourne-Nanjing Collaboration

WORLD PREMIERE

Part of Circus Series series.

PRESENTED BY MELBOURNE FESTIVAL IN ASSOCIATION WITH PLAYKING FOUNDATION

DIRECTED BY MEREDITH KITCHEN (NICA)
ARTISTIC CONSULTANT LU GUANG RONG

Three decades ago, Australian circus was changed forever when the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe came to Victoria to teach our finest young performers the art of Chinese circus.

Three decades later, Melbourne Festival celebrates this milestone by welcoming five of Nanjing’s extraordinary circus artists for an unmissable program of jaw-dropping juggling, spinning and tumbling.

Nanjing’s finest are joined on stage by performers from the Flying Fruit Fly Circus and the National Institute of Circus Arts, making for a remarkable international collaboration between a whole new generation of Australian and Chinese circus talent.

Come witness a historic showcase – a one-off opportunity to see some of the world’s best circus artists performing alongside Australia’s rising stars.


THE NANJING CONNECTION

In 1983, the world-famous Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe undertook the first of two training projects with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Circus Oz and other physical theatre artists. The initiative and its two celebrated shows, The Great Leap Forward and The Circus of Tomorrow, revolutionised the way Australia thought about and practised the circus arts.

The roots of these exchanges lay in an earlier initiative in 1980, when Carrillo Gantner, then Executive Director of Playbox Theatre Company, and Clifford Hocking brought the Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe to Australia. It took him another three years of negotiation to bring them back, this time not just to perform – this time they would change the face of circus in Australia forever.

To continue the 30-year legacy of the original Nanjing Project, Melbourne Festival is proud to welcome a new generation of some of China’s best acrobats to Australia. In partnership with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus and the National Institute of Circus Arts, five hand-picked circus artists will train with students in Albury - Wodonga and in Melbourne at NICA’s Prahran headquarters, imparting the innovations of current Chinese practice.

Melbourne audiences will have the chance to witness the result of this cultural exchange firsthand, when a brand new iteration of the Nanjing Project is presented as part of Melbourne Festival’s celebration of the art of circus.

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package discount

Wed 15 – Fri 17 Oct
Wed & Thu at 7pm
Fri at 6pm & 9pm

1 hr, no interval

$49/$39
Restricted View Seats $39
Family Pack $129
Students $25
Transaction fees may apply

  • Assistive listening
  • Wheelchair

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