Created by Yaron Lifschitz and the Circa Ensemble

Director Yaron Lifschitz
Technical Director& Co-Lighting Design Jason Organ
Co-Lighting Designer Richard Clarke
Costume Design Libby McDonnell

Violinist Miranda Cuckson

International representation
Allen Moon / David Lieberman Artists’ Representatives USA, Canada, Central & South America

Yaron Lifschitz / Circa New creations & big dreams

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.

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 Theatre Company, Kooemba Jdarra and festivals such as Out of the Box, Qld Music Festival and Brisbane Festival.

Jason was the co-founder of JLX productions, a lighting design and technical consultancy, based in Brisbane. Since 2010 Jason has been working exclusively with Circa as Technical Director. In this time, he has helped deliver more than 20 new productions and toured to 31 different countries presenting Circa’s work.

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.

“The mighty Circa” (Lyn Gardner, The Guardian)

Circa Contemporary Circus is one of the world’s leading performance companies. Since 2004, from its base in Brisbane, Australia, Circa has toured the world – performing in more than 45 countries to nearly 2 million people. Circa’s works have been greeted with standing ovations, rave reviews and sold-out houses across six continents.

Circa is at the forefront of the new wave of contemporary Australian circus – pioneering how extreme physicality can create powerful and moving performances. It continues to push the boundaries of the art form, blurring the lines between movement, dance, theatre and circus. Compelled by the question ‘what is possible in circus?’ Circa is leading the way with a diverse range of thrilling creations that ‘redraw the limits to which circus can aspire.’ (The Age).

Under the direction of circus visionary Yaron Lifschitz, Circa features an ensemble of exceptional, multi-skilled circus artists who have been a regular fixture at leading festivals and venues in New York, London, Berlin and Montreal with seasons at Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Barbican Centre, Les Nuits de Fourvière, Chamäleon Theatre as well as major Australian Festivals.

Visit circa.org.au to find a Circa performance near you and discover why Circa has been hailed as nothing short of “… a revolution in the spectacle of circus.” (Les Echos).

Circa is committed to fostering the next generation of circus artists and runs public circus classes from its studio in Brisbane. Circa also runs regular circus programs with communities throughout Queensland and around Australia.

As a champion of live performance, Circa was the Creative Lead for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games arts and cultural program.
Discover more about Circa by subscribing to enews at circa.org.au and following the company on facebook.com/circacontemporarycircus, Instagram.com/circapresents and via #circacircus.

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.