Meet the Makers: Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix)
Published: Wednesday 21 June, 2023
Three of the creatives behind the world premiere of Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix) took time out of rehearsals and preparations for opening night to sit down with us and talk collaboration, inspiration and what it’s like to work with the world-leading, boundary smashing contemporary circus company.
Read on to learn a little more about DJ Composer Ori Lichtik, Designer Libby McDonnell and Circa’s Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz. Don’t miss this spectacular experience, on at The Civic from Thursday 29 June – Saturday 01 July.
Yaron Lifschitz – Circa Artistic Director
What has the process been like of creating Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix)?
Amazing! Fantastic acrobats, great creative team, a healthy sense of fun and a dash of playful delight with a lot of hard work. We are pretty straightforward - figure out the order, build the acrobatic skills, refine the pathways and then build the show. We are currently in 5 days of technical rehearsals with lights, sound and our artists to make the show look and sound spectacular.
What has the experience been like of collaborating with DJ Ori Lichtik?
Wonderful. This is our third project together but we have never met in person until now. It's great having him in the room and having him play live is a special treat.
What is it about circus and the power and potential of the human body that excites you so much?
What's not to love - when we work together with care and mastery we become beautiful, resonant and alive in fresh ways. I find circus profoundly moving and deeply exciting. It's kind of art-meets-sport with a dash of poetry.
Ori Lichtick – DJ Composer for Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix)
What draws you towards working on physical, dance, theatre and circus shows?
I like being involved in this kind of works because of the connection between clubbing and the experience of being a DJ. It brings a lot of freedom into what a DJ usually does because of the fact that acrobats will do their thing anyway, so it’s still a challenge for me to make it more fun, deeper to enhance their experience, but they will do their thing anyway so it gives me a chance to be more free, more experimental. The music doesn’t necessarily have to be ‘danceable’ in a direct way. I get to experiment with genres that might not go inside the box of dance music and make them danceable.
What has the process been like of creating the music for Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix)?
It will be a short but interesting process. I’m arriving in Brisbane shortly – and I’ve never been in a relationship with a creative for so long without meeting them in person. We had the original Peepshow and Humans 2.0 and this will be the first time I’m meeting Yaron in person so it’s very special and strange. I’m very much looking forward to this intensive part of the work.
Already we are sharing ideas and inspiration and the vibe Yaron is looking for and what is the emphasis and importance of certain parts and transitions between parts. And I have sent pieces of music and video and we share so we can feel it and think about it.
What are you listening to right now?
My tendency is to go back to the sources of music and techno music which is tribal music, African recordings and early industrial stuff and hip hop, because I am really interested in the raw phases before it became a genre for itself, before the rules. That inspires me the most so I always come back to it in different ways and Western orchestral classical music – I like to find the techno and groove inside of it and doing less expected combinations.
Libby McDonnell – Circa Head of Design
What has the process been like of creating the costumes for Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix)?
I guess no two creative processes that I go through at Circa are ever the same, but what they do all share are really thrilling rehearsal room experiences, the process with Yaron is dynamic so it is an iterative process, lots of back and forth. It’s been really fun working with sequins, they always make you happy, and working with some velvet.
I find that I often am in a particular world with costuming and start to wear the colour palette!
What is the collaborative process like with Circa Artistic Director Yaron Lifschitz?
Our process is very dynamic, exciting, there are always new challenges. I guess it’s not just new processes with Yaron but each show has a different set of technical needs that need to feed into the creative needs of the show.
What has inspired the costume design for Circa’s Peepshow (Club Remix)?
When we first did Peepshow, what is different for me about this version is that we have completely removed the Act 1 costume, however the cabaret world still sits inside the design through certain costume elements, but we have saturated it with this deconstructed club world.
When we first created it we were thinking about Berlin and a world that sat inside Berghain or something like that, that had little cracks of the cabaret or the vaudeville emerge from that.
It’s deconstructed 90s club couture meets deconstructed post cabaret. Also because in most of the work that Circa makes there is a high level of group acrobatics that demands a certain thing of the costuming so that is also layered in to there.
