by The Women's Circus
At Nubrik Factory Dawson St. Brunswick until December 1995
Reviewed by Kate Herbert on 24 November 1995 for The Melbourne Times
One woman who went with the Circus to the Beijing Conference on Women remembers, " the diversity of experience, emotion, culture.... and toilets." This image of the meaningful meeting the ordinary and ridiculous epitomises the company's new production, Leaping the Wire.
Donna Jackson has directed fifty-odd performers of varying skill levels in a physical narrative about eight women's stories of abuse, terror and, occasionally, survival. The tales leap from Tibetan nuns to Gypsies, aboriginal deaths in custody, Brazilain women seeking their disappeared sons, an Algerian girl killed for not wearing the veil and the revenge killing of a girl wearing the veil.
In Burma, a supporter of Oong Sun Soo Chee is gaoled for "endangering public tranquillity." If it were not so violent and oppressive it would be hilarious. The cops cop it in every country.
Musical director Paula Dowse accompanies the action with music creatively derivative of the countries depicted.
There are some beautiful images created through the opportunity to mass fifty women onstage and the use of acrobatic / circus physicality. The Brazilian "tree-hangers" with their accompanying lyrical music were superb.
The murders of the Algerian girls (veiled and unveiled) were simple and dramatic as they tumbled into the arms of their supporters and company member Linda Wilson's bald statement about her childhood sexual abuse and subsequent recovery were very moving and immediate. This oppression doesn't only happen "out there."
The finale was a joyful clamour of women in pyramids – a happy relief from the torrid painful images of terror and death.
KATE HERBERT
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