Edinburgh 2022: Debra Batton Guest Blog

Guest Blog: A Good Catch Circus brings a unique artistic piece of theatre to the Fringe

Performer Debra Batton discusses creating a collaborative Circus piece during the Covid-19 lockdowns

Debra Batton from A Good Catch blogs for BroadwayWorld about bringing new compelling theatre show Zoë to the Fringe and how the team create a breathtaking circus performance that speaks directly to the audience, telling the story of climate change through their work

A Good Catch Circus is an independent small company of three generations, 30s, 40s and 60s. We experiment with the circus artform. We have worked with companies including Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Legs on the Wall, Circus Oz and Cirque du Soliel and decided to develop a new company in 2017. (https://www.agoodcatchcircus.com/)

We embrace uncertainty and challenge our embedded knowledge of how circus works. We believe we must seek new knowledge and usurp our assumptions, we must experiment, and learn from failures. We value authenticity and engage with generating work in response to the conditions of life. We allow the show to emerge from skills training, play, the everyday and discussion. We love the physicality of circus, it feeds us, there is no line between the end of training and the beginning of making; 'ideas' are uncovered with our circus practice, our bodies express and reveal content through sensation and discovery. We invent new problems in order to disrupt our process, we want to surprise ourselves.

Zoë is our second full length work. We presented Casting Off at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 and won the Total Theatre and Jackson's Lane award for Best Circus and have continued to tour with the show, however our international bookings were disrupted by Covid-19 and we began work on a new piece. . .Zoë.

First of all, I need to let you know that Zoë is not a non-verbal circus performance. There are several texts mostly delivered in voice over as part of the sound score. Much of this text was written during lockdown while were finding new ways to creatively engage and experiment without access to a circus studio. Texts were generated in responses to provocations, our dramaturge (who became our director) wrote, collated, edited and refined the texts. Our composer Naima Fine (https://finefinesmallmountain.wordpress.com/naima-fine/) incorporated these into the score/sound design. Through collaboration we uncover ideas, sometimes miscommunication produces clarity!

It was clear to us that Zoë needed to live in whatever form we could manage in the strange and uncertain times of Melbourne's extensive lockdowns. We struggled, and eventually embraced these creative constraints. We wrote grant applications, got some and these enabled us to collaborate with a design team including Clara Mee Yee Chan (https://clarameeyeechan.weebly.com/posthuman-confluence.html) whose "symbionts" also became an important influence. Our collaboration began with the provocation: what if the costumes are not practical for circus! For us the point was to adapt, to be more than human, to become hybrid entities.

We had creative meetings online and set tasks to respond to ideas that some of us were researching at the time, most importantly philosopher Rosi Braidotti's Posthuman Knowledge and affirmative ethics. This theoretical investigation offered us a new framework for thinking about the climate crises, one with energy and hope. Zoë is a logical response to the commodification of life that is advanced capitalism.

While we are not economic experts, the commodification of all species for profit cannot be separated from the problems we face with extinction and planetary degradation. It's a huge subject and completely and utterly absurd to explore with circus, or is it? Zoë means all life, human and non-human. There is a liveliness in a dog, a table, an imaginary creature, a molecule, and a virus. There is more life in a cell phone than in many humans. As circus artists we understand this, we have relationships with apparatus, fellow acrobats, with lighting, sound and groups of strangers who attend our performances. The project of inviting the world to the table is impossible, but one we must progress with, we find humour as we grapple with caring and creativity, as we poke at the system we are also entangled with.

Now we wonder how audiences will engage with Zoë. It's delightfully unknown and a little bit scary...we are under pressure like many species and the planet itself. At this time Zoë feels right. This is what we have to offer. World you are invited.

Zoë, Assembly Roxy (Central), 3.30pm, 3-14 August (no day off)

Photo credit: Claudia Sangiorgi-Dalimore

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