The National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) presents ECLIPSE

NICA National Circus Centre (NNCC Building)

Friday 10 June to Saturday 18 June

ECLIPSE is NICA’s first public-facing production since 2019. Twelve enduring and talented students have been pressurised by lockdowns into diamonds, ready to showcase a thrilling live performance filled with acrobatics, corde-lisse, trapeze, aerial hoop, tightwire, roue cyr, handstands, foot juggling and hula hoop, taking place Friday 10 – Saturday 18 June at NICA National Circus Centre (NNCC Building).

Inspired by The Pandemic is a Portal by Arundhati Roy, ECLIPSE offers a gateway to a vision of what our future could, should, would and might just be. Exploring unity, diversity, harmony, balance, trust, compromise, our humanity, and our fragility; what can we build and create together?

Embark on a journey with us as we explore the story of this changing world. What would we change if we could? What is this ‘new normal’ we face? What world do we want ours to be like?

Devised with the graduating company, conceived by Sally Richardson (Director of Steamworks Arts, Artistic Director of Maxima Circus), directed by Meredith Kitchen (Associate Director at South Australian Circus Centre) and in-house performance studies co-ordinator Ben Sheen (Director/Founder of Periscope Productions 2011 – Present), ECLIPSE is a cross-faculty collaboration with Film Students from Swinburne University of Technology Film and Television and make-up students from Melbourne Polytechnic.

Artfully paired with the dazzling live opera vocals of one of Australia’s finest interpreters of contemporary vocal repertoire, Judith Dodsworth (Greta in Brian Howard’s Metamorphosis with Victoria Opera, as well as the title role and Mercedes in Carmen for OzOpera), a live electronic and percussive score by Louis Frere-Harvey (Command Q, Structural Dependency) and dynamic visual set and costume design by Eloise Kent and Angelica Ru (The Darkening Sky, TheatreWorks in 2022, THIS at Rising Festival in 2021) ECLIPSE will leave audiences blinded by surprise.

NICA’s Head of Circus, James Brown (2015 – Present), emphasises NICA’s excitement for bringing a live audience back to our space with such an auspicious show. “These students have spent the last two years preparing and finessing their skills. They are roaring and ready to present this unique piece to our audiences and we can’t wait for you to experience it yourself.”

ECLIPSE promises to be awe-inspiring, thought-provoking, and mesmerising. Eclipses are harbingers of change – they usher in an evolution.

The National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) is Australia’s Centre of Excellence for training in contemporary circus arts. It is one of eight national arts training institutes and offers Australia’s only Bachelor of Circus Arts. Graduates of NICA have gone on to pursue exciting careers both locally and internationally and have contributed to the development of Melbourne’s vibrant circus arts industry.