Kaleidoscope at Sydney Festival. Photograph by Dylan Edwards.
‘Yes, I’m performing…’ says Ethan Hugh, answering the phone which rings during the performance of Kaleidoscope. ‘I’m on stage. It’s the Sydney Festival. It’s a big deal’
It is indeed a big deal! Incredible that this small Brisbane based company, Company 2, with their show Kaleidoscope which premiered in partnership with AUTISM Queensland in celebration of Autism Awareness Month in April 2016 at the Judith Wright Centre of Performing Arts in Brisbane, has now gone on to tour to the Sydney Festival, one of Australia’s major arts festivals, and now has other major tours in the pipeline.
Working with the Company 2 artists, 13-year-old boy Ethan Hugh, who was born with high functional autism aka Asperger’s Syndrome and a hearing impediment, has collaborated on creating and devising Kaleidoscope, a show which sets out to explore the world of autism and to investigate it through using circus. Ethan was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when he was just four years old. His mother, Joanna Wharton, wrote a book about their life together, describing his world as ‘a dazzling kaleidoscope’ filled with colour and light. It is her writing which inspired the creation of the show,
Kaleidoscope is important because it points to a range of circus coming under the banner of social circus which achieves amazing things but often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Social circus is a form of circus with a radical social agenda often working with disadvantaged or disabled young people at risk aiming to lift their spirits and to create new opportunities and hope. Brisbane is the centre for much remarkable social circus work with young people diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, including the work of Flipside Circus, Kristy Seymour’s Circus Stars and now here Company 2 with Kaleidsoscope.
In addition to this, the show itself is fun. The musical interludes, many of which use percussion and are played live by the performers throughout the show, are diverse and atmospheric; the text is at times humorous and thought provoking; and there is some great circus, with a strong pole act, an inventive lyra act, a lovely static trapeze act and a silks act involving body painting!
The opening scene of the Kaleidoscope was one of the real highlights. Using a video camera set above the stage looking down at the performers, who are moving across the floor, the images were projected live up on to the vertical plane of the backdrop. This allowed the performers to play with the change in planes and create huge inventive acrobatic pyramids through crawling to different positions on the floor. This built up and became really funny as the performers experimented, and the pyramids became more and more complex until they moved into the realm of the physically impossible.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars
Sydney Festival
Kaleidoscope
Company 2
13-18 January
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta
Artists/Co-Creators: Ethan Hugh, Oliver Foley, Walker Milne, Alice Muntz, kate Muntz and Telsha Hinsch
Director: Chelsea McGuffin
Writer: Joanna Wharton
Musical Director and Co-Creator: David Carberry
Lighting Design: Dan Black
Costume Design: Linda Hinsch
Set Design: David Carberry
Photo Credit: Dylan Edwards
