“The very relationship with the other is the relationship with the future” – Emmanuel Levinas

Is this the only circus show inspired by grammar?

Beloved of continental philosophers, the future anterior tense (or its English equivalent the future present) is one in which the past becomes true in the future. For instance, if, as you politely end your call entering the theatre tonight, you said to your interlocutor, “In an hour, I will have seen this show” you have a high likelihood of being right, but when exactly, would you be right? By the time it happens, it has already passed; until it happens, it is in the future.

There is literally no present in the future anterior – the past manifests in the future, the future retrospectively fulfils the past’s promises.

Circus is the art form of the present. You have to be there as bodies risk all, in real time, in that moment. What Will Have Been was born from this delightful tension – how can we embody absence, and create a show whose pasts and futures are searching a shared presence? And what happens when we get there?

Each of the show’s scenes brings to life these counter-movements of togetherness, apartness, balance, flow, give and take. Sometimes the results are moving and beautiful, sometimes comic or silly. The overall effect is like watching a poem written by extremely skilful performers, right in front of us, in a present we inhabit and they are searching for.

Yaron Lifschitz
Artistic Director and CEO

Yaron Lifschitz – Director
Yaron Lifschitz is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, and National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), where he was the youngest director ever accepted into its prestigious graduate director’s course. Since graduating, Yaron has directed over 80 productions including large-scale events, opera, theatre, physical theatre, and circus.

His work has been seen in over forty-five countries and across six continents by nearly two million people and has won numerous awards including six Helpmann awards and the Australia Council Theatre Award. His productions have been presented at major festivals and venues around the world including Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Barbican, Les Nuits de Fourvière, Chamaleon and all the major Australian festivals. His film work was selected for the Berlin and Melbourne Film Festivals. He was founding Artistic Director of the Australian Museum’s Theatre Unit, Head Tutor in Directing at Australian Theatre for Young People and has been a regular guest tutor in directing at NIDA.

He is currently Artistic Director and CEO of Circa and was Creative Director of Festival 2018: the arts and cultural program of the 21st Commonwealth Games.

Jason Organ – Technical Director & Co-Lighting Design

Jason graduated from Queensland University of Technology in 1988 and has had an extensive career as a Lighting Designer, Production Manager, Technician and Rigger. He has worked with companies such as Queensland Ballet, Queensland Theatre, La Boite, Kooemba Jdarra and festivals such as Out of the Box, Qld Music Festival and Brisbane Festival.

Jason was co-founder of JLX productions a Brisbane based lighting design and technical consultancy. Between 2010 and 2022 Jason worked exclusively with Circa as Technical Director, in this time he has helped deliver 20 new productions and toured 31 countries presenting Circa’s work. Jason is currently a Production manager for QPAC’s curatorial department.

Richard Clarke – Co-Lighting Designer
Richard Clarke graduated from Queensland University of Technology in 1998. On graduation he worked as a lighting designer, production electrician and lighting operator for theatre, dance and circus before transitioning into lighting programming and production management in the corporate, television and live events industries before returning to the arts. He has been working with Circa since 2010 and worked exclusively with the company from 2016-2021.

Libby McDonnell – Costume Designer
Libby is a designer and choreographer and she is currently Head of Design at Circa. Libby works in diverse genres and forms. At the heart of her work is people and movement.

Libby has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in Visual Art from Queensland College of Art -Griffith University and an Associate Degree in Dance from Queensland University of Technology. Her professional career has included performing and making independent dance work, as an Artistic Director of Ballet Theatre of Queensland and Choreographer for Blue Roo Theatre Company. For eleven years Libby has worked with the team at Circa to imagine, develop and deliver their productions locally, nationally and internationally. During her time at Circa she has designed costumes for over thirty productions, co-directed 3 main stage productions and led many of the company’s engagement projects including the pilot of the Circability program.

Libby is based in Brisbane with her family.

Kimberley Rossi

Kimberley grew up in Queensland, and as a Brisbane local it didn’t take long before she stumbled upon Circa.

Beginning her circus training at age 13, in just three short years she was given the opportunity to be the first member of Fast Track, a program designed for young and aspiring performers within Circa. With the support of her family, Kimberley decided to leave school and pursue a career in the circus industry. Shortly after she found herself on a plane flying out to perform her first show, Nocturne in Seoul, South Korea.

Over the years Kimberley has been a part of over 30 productions, visited some of the world’s most beautiful locations and logged over 4000 hours in her favourite video game.

Malte Gerhardt 

Malte discovered his passion for the explosive yet precise art of partner acrobatics at the age of nine with his local youth circus in southwest Germany. His journey led him to the State Ballet School and School of Acrobatics in Berlin, followed by completing his vocational training at CircArtive School in 2019. He then specialised in partner acrobatics on a one-metre ball during four arts at Codarts, University for the Arts in Rotterdam, earning a BNG nomination for his graduation act BLANK in 2023. 

Since then, Malte has co-created the family show SuperSociety with Stefan Bauer and performed with Circa at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide, including TOHU, Edinburgh Festival, Montréal Complètement Cirque, Circusstad Festival, and Carré.

Zachery Stephens

Zachery began his circus career following in the footsteps of his siblings and aspires to one day perform alongside them. With a background in competitive gymnastics and Olympic weightlifting, Zachery is no stranger to lifting weight above himself and has a terrible habit of asking anyone regardless of size to stand on him.

Undertaking his circus studies at the National Institute of Circus Arts, he has trained for 4 years as a hand-balancer and hand to hand base. However, his true love and the place where Zachery thrives most is in an ensemble, where he can explore group acrobatics in collaboration with creative movement. Zachery’s ambition as an artist is to become as versatile as possible, to never become comfortable and most importantly, to show the world why circus is the most powerful and beautiful expression of what it means to be human.

Images by Billie Wilson-Coffey

Miranda Cuckson is a “fearless, visionary and tremendously talented artist” (Sequenza21), an internationally acclaimed soloist and collaborator on the violin and viola, whose repertoire  extends from early classics to 21st-century experimental pieces. She has been a featured artist at the Berlin Philharmonie, Suntory Hall, Teatro Colón, the Cleveland Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the 92nd St Y, and elsewhere.

Miranda recorded her first album, of the Ponce and Korngold concertos with the Czech National Symphony, in 2001. She has since released ten highly praised albums, including Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura for violin and electronics, a New York Times Best Recording of 2012; the Bartók, Lutoslawski, and Schnittke sonatas; and her live performance of the Ligeti Violin Concerto with the UC Davis Orchestra. She has recorded Ross Lee Finney, Donald Martino, and Ralph Shapey, the Roger Sessions solo Sonata, duos by Elliott Carter and Jason Eckardt; the wreckage of flowers by Michael Hersch; Melting the Darkness, solo microtonal and electro-acoustic pieces; and violin music by a who’s who of composers.

A member of AMOC*, Miranda engages with the full gamut of musical expression. She has appeared at numerous festivals, including National Sawdust’s multimedia Ferus Festival, Ojai, Bard, Marlboro, Portland, Music Mountain, West Cork, Grafenegg, Wien Modern, and others;  performed the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with the State Ballet of Georgia, the Barber Violin Concerto with the New York City Ballet, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto with NYCB soloists for the Balanchine centennial, and collaborated with the New York Choreographic Institute and New Chamber Ballet.

Miranda holds BM, MM, and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School. She teaches violin and chamber music at the Mannes School of Music and has led workshops and master classes at Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, UC San Diego, UC Davis, the Peabody Institute, Brown University, Williams College, Rice University, and other leading conservatories and universities.

NYC: 73 – 78, 1957: Award Montage, November 25: Ichigaya by Philip Glass

© 2012, 1985, 1985 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc. Used by Permission.

A Norfolk and Norwich Festival commission

Circa acknowledges the assistance of the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body and the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

On our open-air Pavilion Theater stage, in our Black Box Theater, across our expansive grounds—and in our surrounding communities—PS21 cultivates and presents productions that transcend boundaries and encourage your expression and participation. Our programming often engages creatively with critical global and social issues: you’ll leave recharged, invigorated, and perhaps thinking differently.

We also host residencies for dancers, musicians, actors, and creators—supporting their development of new, even unclassifiable, work.

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Through our PATHWAYS programs, we bring visionary artists into workshops, classes, installations, and performances on our grounds and into the community—all free of charge or at low cost. PATHWAYS also fosters collaboration between community arts groups and the Town of Chatham—enhancing cultural life in the Hudson Valley.

Extraordinary times require both new art forms and innovative approaches to time-honored disciplines. PS21 is challenging and joyful, of our community and of our world, thought-provoking and magical.

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PS21’s programs are made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Amphion Foundation, The Alice M. Ditson Fund, MidAtlantic Arts Foundation, Veillette Nifosi Foundation, J.M. Kaplan Fund, Robert Craft/Igor Stravinsky Foundation, GKV Foundation, Bank of Greene County, Stewart’s Holiday Match, Japan Arts Council,  as well as our valued donors through Memberships, our Circle of Supporters, commissioning, and our annual Gala.

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