August 2008 Winter in Banyule Circus Workshops! Attention all circus-hungry kids! Trick Circus will be running circus workshops for anyone aged 5-15 years. This is your chance to discover what it takes to be a circus performer! Try terrific tumbling, juggling with pizzazz, human pyramids built sky-high, and crazy clowning comedy. Click the pic on the <<< left <<< for more info. May 2008 Trick's First Regional Tour! Remember to watch out for Trick’s upcoming shows in Daylesford, Bacchus Marsh, Kyneton, Geelong and Castlemaine in May! Our new theme will be iCircus – a sneak peek into Trick’s idea of our future… December 2007 Clocks Carnival, Flinders Street Station In a combination act of roving and street performing, Trick delighted both pratrons and pedestrians at the Clocks Carnival next to Flinders Street Station. In addition to ball juggling, club passing, adagio and cheer-leeding, Trick also ran a children's circus workshop, teaching young kids juggling, clowning and acrobatic skills. November 2007 Laverton Festival, Laverton Trick performed at the annual Laverton Community Festival at the Aviation Road shopping precinct on Saturday 17th November. They thrilled audience with roving throughout the day, and performing a 20-minute act on the main stage. October 2007 Around the Bay in a Day, Altona As hundreds of cyclists stopped to rest at Logan Reserve, the were greeted with a band, a sausage sizzle and TRICK CIRCUS! Four performers entertained the crowd with juggle, adagio tricks and acrobatics for an hour. October 2007 Foundation for Young Australians Conference, Kalorama Trick took a hike up into the hills to contribute to the closing-night celebrations of a camp run by the Foundation for Young Australians, where the guests were already into the spirit of things with their best frocks and party hats. Meanwhile, Trick got down to business, roving as their high-status suited citizens, and then later performing a 20-minute act themed on technology. Ironically, technology wasn't on our side with a few minor music hiccups, but the troupe still managed to improvise their way through some sticky situations! March 2007 Alzheimer's Fundraising Autumn Picnic, Cruden Farm, Langwarrin Trick once again had the pleasure of perusing the amazing expanses of Cruden Farm while performing spectacular skills like juggling, acrobalance and tumbling to the happy picnickers. February 2007 Celebrate Yarra Festival, Edinburgh Gardens After the success of the show taken to Tasmania, Trick wanted to celebrate it's achievement with its own community… and what better time to do it than Celebrate Yarra day? Swapping planes for trains, trams and cars, the troupe gathered at the Edinburgh Gardens on the sweltering 43-degree day to rove around the festivities, and again perform a dynamic, though slightly over-heated, 20-minute extract of 'When I Grow Up'. February 2007 Tasmanian Circus Festival, Lonestar, Tasmania The Tricksters go to Tassie part two! This time armed with a condensed version of their recent award-winning show, 'When I Grow Up', the troupe piled onto the plane ready for 10 days of training, rehearsing, learning and sharing skills in the Tasmanian forest with scores of national and international circus artists. Despite the prospect of performing to hundreds of industry professionals and members of the public, the nerves didn't show, and the team managed to put on an outstanding performance that prompted much praise. January 2007 Australia Day Voyages Concert, Federation Square Four of the Tricksters created a performance for the Australia Day spectacular at Federation Square. Twirling, acrobalance, walking globe and juggling were used in the act themed on the 'Big Bang'. The performers topped off the huge show involving many pieces by school, community and professional performing arts groups, most of whom joined them on stage at the end for a hundred-strong mass of dancing and celebrating, while the amazing fireworks glittered overhead. November 2006 ACE AMORE! Fundraiser, The Famous Spiegeltent The Tricksters helped raise the roof of the Famous Spiegeltent for one night only to raise funds for ACE (Australians for Cambodian Education). The troupe donned their most stunningly sparkly attire to contribute to the dazzling display of dance, music and circus that was ACE Amore! October 2006 "When I Grow Up", The Age 2006 Melbourne Fringe Festival 10 young acrobats; skilled up, toned up, and growing up took the Melbourne Fringe by storm with their sell-out season. They not only enjoyed the performing experience but they also came away with the Circus Award, the Family Award and the ACAPTA Award. WELL DONE! August 2006 "When I Grow Up" prototype, Bacchus Marsh Trick were given the opportunity to broaden their horizons and take a work in progress of "When I Grow Up" to hundreds of school students at Bacchus Marsh Secondary College. This opportunity to gauge audience responses helped Trick to further improve and develop the show before it's official opening at the Fringe Festival. May 2006 National Safe Schools Week Launch, Ruthven, Melbourne Trick Circus were again invited to partake in the promotion of National Safe Schools Week, this time at Ruthven Primary School. The Tricksters entertained both school children and MPs alike. All sorts of acrobatic skills were used to explore themes such as friendship, safety and perseverance. After watching the show, the school kids were invited to give some of the skills they had seen a try in workshops facilitated by the Tricksters. April 2006 Supporting Cool Cats Cabaret at La Mama's, Carlton Courthouse After a last minute invitation, Trick Circus pulled together a magnificent display of their acrobatic skill based on their Swiss Italian Festival act. Despite time and performing space restrictions, Trick managed to delight the audience with a very professional performance. April 2006 Swiss-Italian Festival (for the second time), Daylesford, Victoria This week Trick was invited back to the picturesque Daylesford community to perform at their annual Swiss Italian Festa. Locals Sprung Circus warmed up the crowd and Trick topped it all off with their silly schoolkids showcasing their juggling, tumbling and acrobalance skills. March 2006 Commonwealth Games, Waterfront City at Docklands, Melbourne Trick Circus had the honour to perform during the Festival Melbourne2006 for the Commonwealth Games. Trick performed 3 shows to the beautiful blue backdrop of Waterfront City in Docklands. December 2005 Alzheimer's Benefit Fair, Murdoch Farm Today four Tricksters ventured out to Langwarrin to perform on the impeccable lawns of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch's "Cruden Farm". Some juggling, blockhead and acrobatics were well received by the guests, and we were able to admire the garden expanses as we roved amongst them. October 2005 Trimapee Fashion Show, Federation Square, Melbourne Two of the Tricksters careened along the catwalk at BMW Edge at Federation Square showing excellent displays of acrobatics and twirling. October 2005 Melbourne High School formal (roving acts), NGV, Melbourne After warming up in a cleaning equipment room in the NGV, (Something bad happened here - someone or something was late, or couldn't turn up - was there an argument?) we made our way to the entrance, lit up our gear and greeted the Melbourne High boys as they arrived with flaming hoops, clubs, staves and poi. Once all the guests were inside, we improvised ball-walking and adagio routines across the main floors and then helped ourselves to the chocolate fountain when the audience was distracted by the speeches. September 2005 End of Year Trick show "New Circus of Old", self-devised, David Williamson Theatre, Prahran The first show Trick members devised and planned entirely of their own initiative was inspired by a script for a Halloween show. Eight weeks later, a mad scientist threw open the doors of the David Williamson Theatre at Swinburne University to purvey his macabre collection of mutant oddities in the style of 1930's freak shows, hence "The New Circus of Old". In between larger group acts, performers took turns in small groups and solos, adding tissue, trapeze, cloudswing and walking globe acts to our repertoire. May 2005 National Drug Prevention Conference, Savoy Hotel, Melbourne Ironically missing school to perform for the Department of Education, we warmed up in a spare room at the hotel, carted our mats in from the alley and up the lift, laid them in the dining room and ran through our acts a few times. On cue, we came back in from the spare room to break up the conference with pyramids, manipulation and flag diving, taking great care not to damage the plaster columns, chandeliers or uncomfortably nearby guests with either the flag or flying juggling rings. After the show we were unexpectedly asked to elaborate on the "many parallels" between school and circus, then rolled up the mats and took our leave (along with some leftover scones) April 2005 Swiss-Italian Festival, Daylesford, Victoria Did we do the same show as at the Circus Festival? April 2005 Trimapee Fashion Show, Dantes Fitzroy restaurant, Fitzroy On fairly short notice we went on the spur of the moment and ducked into Dante's the day before the gig to warm up on the wooden floor and mark out a catwalk-sized tumbling routine. The next night we packed into the dressing room filled with other performers, models and balloons, and between the fashion we did pyramids, tumbling, and blockhead acts. No one fell off the catwalk, some of us got a peek at a man belly dancing with a snake, and we even got to keep the stylish Trimapee shirts we performed in. February 2005 Tasmanian Circus Festival, Lonestar, Tasmania Each day in the Tasmania Circus Festival Training week came with 8 hours of expert tuition in all manner of circus skill, from vaudeville dancing to slapstick clowning to non-stop juggling to walking ladders to the high tightrope and the exhilarating flying trapeze. But this was nothing compared to the Festival weekend, when the gates were flung open to the Tasmanian public and the professionals gave performances of the most breathtaking calibre and expertise. Naturally this made us young'uns a tad nervous, but luckily we had managed a few rehearsals in between training, running our own children's workshops for the public (which went surprisingly well), ogling at the stars of Australian circus and participating in the spectacular Fire show, either as acrobats or fire twirlers. So on the last day of the Festival, in spite of numerous training injuries, we gave it our best shot on the main stage with tumbling, manipulation, flag diving, hoops, contortion and table sliding, all in black-and-white with eerily gigantic smiles painted on our humourless faces. Though there was a heart stopping moment in the contortion routine, the crowd was none the wiser and to our relief both the public and the professionals were delighted with our performance. September 2004 Melbourne Fringe Festival, self-devised show "Real Fraud", Northcote Uniting Church, Northcote As the days blurred towards opening night, the troupe was called into the Church for longer and longer hours, not only to rehearse but also to organise our local advertisement and construct whole wooden tiers of seats and tech management specially for the occasion. Real Fraud was an inventive show-within-a-show, in which the audience could see a mock backstage, performers exasperating over the antics of inept stage technicians, and ghosts of circus past who haunted the stage to our own live musical accompaniment. The fraud performers' complaints of lack of rehearsal were ironic given the number of slips and alterations that snuck into the show over the nights, and the ticketing income was disappointingly below our budget, but we learned a lot form Real Fraud about the difficulties of producing a show of our own. September 2004 Kids Under Cover Ball, Palladium, Crown Casino, Melbourne Our second performance in the Palladium saw more preparation on our part, with a new piece involving animalistic characters invading a dinner party. Yet it attracted strangely little attention from the diners at the ball, who looked up to watch us bounding between their tables, but gradually returned to their conversations once we reached the stage at the end of the room. This may have been partially due to the lack of microphones, as our dialogue was drowned out by the hubbub. September 2004 The Mayor's Benefit for East Timor, City of Darebin Alongside the younger LBT performing division, Circusaurus, we presented a series of short acts to the Benefit attendants. One by one our ringmaster pulled contortionists, adagio groups and chair-balancers onto our new podiums, until it was time for the guests' luncheon. July 2004 Lighthouse Foundation Fundraising Ball, Palladium, Crown Casino, Melbourne Brimming with excitement over our first corporate function, we bounced around the Palladium to the delight of our onlookers and then dashed back to our pristine dress room to don the uniform of our Fila sponsors. Returning to the Palladium for another round of applause, our congratulations as "the FILA Little Big Tops Circus" caused some concern, but overall the gig went down well and we left John Farnham to finish off the night. June 2004 TRICK launch, Circus Oz Big Top, Birrarung Marr, Melbourne On a night off for the Circus Oz performers, the newly christened Trick was given one golden opportunity to perform in their big top. After another introductory rap by Kate Fielding, we threw ourselves at our full house with our most ambitious production yet, a full hour (?) of table sliding, hoop diving, choristers, remote-controlled monster combat and explosives (albeit dramatised). Trick bathed in the adulation of the crowd and screamed its new name to all corners of the Melbourne circus community. Since entry was free, the donations flowed afterwards for our foundling youth circus. June 2004 Circus Sightseeing tour, in conjunction with Princes Hill Secondary School students, North Carlton/Princes Hill Fitted in bellhop costumes designed by Lyndal Yeo, we trundled around Princes Hill and North Carlton in a bus doing short acts at the Library, Melbourne General Cemetery gates, the Community Centre, the Secondary School and the Old Railway House, all in coalition with Princes Hill Secondary students and historian Kate Fielding. Our evening show entertained special guest relatives of the famous human cannonball, Steven Outch. May 2004 Abbotsford Convent Fair, Abbotsford We rolled up with a minitramp, crashmat and costumes to rehash the old Threw the Roof Choir Act, in deference to the history of the Convent. We performed a few times around the Convent grounds, and then gave a circus skills demonstration and children's workshop in the Rosina courtyard. April 2004 Carlton Baths Youth Production, Carlton By this stage we had incorporated slow choreography into the beginning of our act to show teenage boredom being suddenly transformed into circus creativity, which fitted nicely with the Youth Production. Other performances included a local rap group, and John So gave a speech to honour the occasion (is this true?) March 2004 Lord Mayor's Charitable Ball, Darebin Arts Centre, Darebin Our second performance of the table-related acts (never titled) served as entertainment for the Lord Mayor's guests, to whet their appetites before their $200 dinner. We made adagio statues around the Arts Centre Foyer as a pre-show, and introduced ourselves with our own impostor Mayor of Moreland. February 2004 Greensborough Community "Eco" Festival, Greensborough A new act developed to include our shiny new sliding table, walking globe and host of new members. We performed in a tent on the Greensborough grass oval, followed by Threw the Roof's crash-test-dummy acts. December 2003 Big West Festival, Footscray The first and last external performance of "Grandma's Couch", ICYC's first attempt at a reusable theatrical show, incorporating contortion and tumbling into a series of surreal acts revolving around the 3 pink chairs that formed the "Couch". Facing uphill into the blazing sun, we performed nearly blind and suffered burns from the scorching mat. October 2003 End of Year Little Big Tops performance, Carlton A host of performances put together by the younger age groups in Little Big Tops was capped off by the first showing of "Grandma's Couch" by the Inner City Youth Circus, the oldest performing age group that was to be later reborn as Trick.