Touring with Circa (France, 2026)

I’ve just finished up an unbelievably special tour with Meanjin-Brisbane-based contemporary circus company, Circa. We toured to Lyon, Paris and Montpellier – three very different, magical, wonderful cities. I’m still catching my breath.

Earlier this year we began exploring the music and sound world for a brand new work called To See The Stars Again, directed by Yaron Lifschitz. Our musical director Jethro Woodward worked with us over two weeks to develop musical ideas and themes, and we get stuck into our different ways of working. Our band features the incredible Natasha Fearnside (bass clarinet, clarinet), who I first met back in the orchestra pit for Groundhog Day The Musical; Tilman Robinson (synths, sounds, laptop, trombone), whose musical compositions I have performed in the past; Jethro on electric guitar and track; and me on electric violin and pedals. Now that we’ve toured together and spent almost every day for three weeks straight eating cheese and bread and crepes all over France together, we are family.

We only spent a couple of weeks up in Meanjin/Brisbane putting our music to the making of the work; which is a very active, hopeful, beautiful and sometimes dark, and funny exploration of the human condition performed by thirteen exceptional acrobats. The things they can do! These acrobats work incredibly hard and I am in awe of their creativity and energy, and their abilities to be flexible and resilient while telling a story.

It’s amazing how a contemporary circus piece comes together. We arrived in Lyon three weeks ago with so many questions around how the work would evolve, and only a couple of days in our venue to work it all out. But it was actually a very smooth process. Yes it’s true that we have each made more discoveries now that we’ve performed the work several times, but even that very first show in Lyon was unreal.

Lyon is a gorgeous city. We were staying right near the old town along the banks of the beautiful river. Our venue was the remains of an ancient Roman amphitheatre at the top of a hill overlooking Lyon. Only the Basilica stands higher on the hill. The stage is decorated with the remains of the ancient columns, and this stage is where many great artists have performed like Portishead, Massive, and even Elton John. Every day we would head over to catering which I can only describe as some sort of secret garden of Eden. We’d sit under vines surrounded by flowers, eating homemade delicious food to fuel us for our performances. It was pretty surreal.

In Lyon, we opened for Le Nuits de Fourvière – a two-month long arts festival in Lyon. The ampitheatre holds 3000 people and we pretty much sold it out. The audience piled in and everyone sits on a little cushion atop the stone amphitheatre. It is traditional at this venue that if audiences enjoy the show, they toss their cushions up on stage at the end of the show. Well, we opened our show, all of us dressed up in our costumes after three gruelling hot days teching and rehearsing. It’s 9:30pm at night, we are outdoors watching the first stars twinkle, there’s a beautiful warm breeze and everyone is coming together to perform this work for the very first time. We get to the end, play a beautiful show, and then cushions rain down on us. Success!

As well as performing the show by night, we got time to explore Lyon by day. I tried the local quenelle (a pike dumpling smothered in lobster sauce), cheeses and breads (that I already miss profusely), and I wandered the parks and streets and visited the markets. I love Lyon.

We performed our final show and celebrated with a little drink before walking on down the big hill to say farewell to Lyon. I hope I will be back. But then it was onwards to Paris.

We boarded the fast train and arrived at our accommodation in Saint Ouen where one of Europe’s biggest flea markets is. Uh oh. We get a day off to have a look around Paris – I visited Notre Dame and ate some duck at a traditional French restaurant that has been running for about 80 years. Paris is big. I’ve been before, but it was many years ago. I already miss Lyon’s peaceful vibe. But then I got to our venue. We are performing four shows at the Grand Palais which is just nearby Champs Élyseés. The palace is grand and epic and made of a beautiful pastel green iron with glass panes. There are elegant palatial staircases, decorative awnings and the longest reverb I’ve ever heard. It is a tremendous space. We worked with the incredible sound crew to tame the reverb, and did a solid dress rehearsal. I ate plenty more extravagant French food – more cheese, more bread, more crepes, galette, champagne, terrine, pate, and a beef bourguignon. I also drink a lot of chartreuse of all ages and varieties. Our performances went off with standing ovations every show. We have something very special here and I just hope it can perform in Australia one day.

Our time in Paris came to a close, and so it was time for our final destination: Montpellier. We took the train down south and arrived to super hot conditions. Summer is definitely here in Southern France. We accidentally took the wrong tram and ended up in the old town oohing and aahing at some extremely beautiful old buildings and a market square. We had a dinner and then wandered the streets at dusk – it’s still light at 9:30pm. We wandered through the streets and we actually couldn’t believe how beautiful it all is. It’s too much! Then we ended up near some very old aqueducts, a marble platform, an exquisite view of the rolling hills, and a group of couples dancing tango in the sunset. These people have chosen very lovely lives for themselves.

We only had two shows in Montpellier. It felt like we were hurtling to the end of this great adventure. But I managed to check out the art at the Musee Fabre, drink a lot of Pastis, and go on a very romantic lunch date with Tash for a five course degustation at Cene which features locally sourced food (within 50km radius). We ate delicious olives and fish and turnips and asparagus and mushrooms and strawberry. It was a perfect last supper.

Our shows in Montpellier were in an outdoor amphitheatre in the middle of a lovely pine forest. The amphitheatre is smaller than Lyon so we can hear the cheers and clapping of our audiences loud and clear at the end of each show. It really was breathtaking receiving that much praise and love. And it was a great way to finish an epic tour.

So now I’m sitting on the plane leaving lovely France for the last part of my adventure. I’m a bit teary because it felt like we were a family, and now I miss my Circa family. But that’s how it goes. In the arts, we come together from all different parts of the world, for a brief moment in time, to make art and share stories, and listen intently to each other, moving and breathing as one. And then it ends, we say goodbye, and maybe we get to come together again in the future. But maybe not. It’s live and living and moving. It’s fleeting. That’s what makes it such a gift.