NoFit State review in Kaskade
Words to accompany Joke Schot's pictures in the latest edition of Kaskade - the European Juggling Magazine - a resource highly recommended for circus practitioners - not just jugglers! - with info on events, equipment makers, training, etc)
Kaskade website for subscription info, etc
Joke Schot's website - includes other circus photos
NoFit State – feel The Fear and do it anyway
Toby Philpott
It all started with juggling.
NoFit State Circus met at a juggling club in the 1980s, and began performing together as a troupe of street performers. With very little funding they have had to work hard, but with the help of a huge family of enthusiastic supporters and voluntary workers they have continually grown and changed.
25 years later, they are still expanding, and extending their range.
Although always rooted in community-level work: teaching, training and encouraging others, they have also displayed and manifested all that they have learned, and all they believe in, by touring live shows.
Their investment in equipment took a huge leap in 1991, when they bought their own little Big Top, with generators, seating, caravans and all – and took a non-animal circus on the road. About a dozen people, in bright pink lorries and caravans and a blue circus tent, they travelled all over the UK with a show aimed at families – full of comedy and music, clowning and a range of circus skills.
When they decided they needed to expand yet again, they began devising warehouse shows, in venues large enough to include other local acts, and aimed at young adults rather than the traditional circus ‘family audience’. Here the audience did not sit politely in rows of seats, but wandered through the performance space, mingling with performers, choosing their own viewpoint, or even just watching from the bar.
NoFit State then took the bold step of commissioning a unique spaceship tent, which finally broke any connection to ‘circus as we know it’. Within this huge silver structure the audience also flow around, watching performances above and around them, including and involving them.
These larger scale touring shows began to get rave reviews from theatre critics who would not normally consider ‘circus’ as art. It started with ImMortal, the show which won the best show of Fira de Tarrega (The largest European Street Arts and Circus Showcase that takes place in Catalunya each year).
They then won awards at several international festivals. This show was performed over 400 times in 9 countries to over 100,000 people.
The current show,Tabú, draws on all their experience, and is the sum of all their experiments. Using stark settings and costumes (not just circus glitter) they combine powerful theatre and performance art with clowning, german wheel, tightrope, static and flying trapeze. The counter-balance workers (who raise and lower the aerialists) are visible and an equal part of the show. This is as close as you can get to real magic – with the performers just a few feet away from you.
The show still draws on theatre. The themes are diverse and non linear but the show looks at Fear, as the most widespread, undetected, un-acknowledged of taboos. It is only when a person with no fear appears in our life that we can go back to living.
Combining cutting edge circus, performance, live music, and video the audience enter the giant silver spaceship big top and become immersed in a promenade circus event taking place above, around and amongst the audience in an explosion of furious fun and choreographed mayhem.
Leave your circus preconceptions behind and join NoFit State for a turbo charged, ninety-minute, life-changing roller coaster ride.
If this show comes to a place near you, then take the chance to visit. You may watch videos clips on their website, www.nofitstate.org but you can never experience the sensation of total immersion, of surround sound and vision, without actually joining them at a live event.
If they are not touring near you, the next opportunity to seek them out will be in London, at The Roundhouse, 31st March – 19th April 2009 – when they yet again transform their tent show and transfer it into an ideal theatre space.
When they performed ImMortal at the same venue in 2007 it was the hottest ticket of the season. Don’t miss Tabú in 2009.