This show is in tents!
Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, a gigantic flying saucer–style tent has landed, filled with high-flying trapeze acts and acrobats. But the leaders of the NoFit State Circus, which will officially open its show “Bianco” inside that canvas covering on May 8, says the show is nothing like a certain well-known Canadian troupe.
“We are literally the antithesis of Cirque du Soleil,” said Tom Rack, creative director of the European performance group.
NoFit State Circus emphasizes individual performers and personal interaction, unlike the distant Las Vegas-style spectacle of some shows, said the troupe’s director.
“In some of those big circuses there can be a group of people dancing together, and it almost doesn’t matter who they are,” said artistic director Firenza Guidi. “In this show the performers will look you in the eye and even talk to you. It’s very, very personal.”
During the course of “Bianco,” audience members stand right beside the dancers as they twist and turn, and Guidi encourages viewers to walk around to catch the action from different angles and to interact with the performers.
The narrative-free show flows from act to act, while a live band plays an array of genres, sometimes changing the set list to react to the action happening on the circus floor.
The gang, based in Wales, has spent the last 30 years traipsing all over Europe, dancing, juggling, and tightrope walking, but this is its first performance in the United States. The group prides itself on being a traditional traveling circus, making a lifestyle out of the craft of performing.
“Living together is unique, it adds to the heart, soul, and spirit of the show,” said Rack.
The 35 members of the troupe do everything collectively, said Rack, setting up the circus’s 42-foot-high tent themselves rather than hiring outside help, and the acrobats control the rigging even as they perform, taking charge of the system of ropes that keep their fellow high-flyers safe.
As the troupe travels, they take in the varying reactions each culture has to the performance. In Hong Kong, the reserved crowd barely moved, said Guidi, but she expects a much wilder time in Brooklyn.
“There is something so special, electric, about Brooklyn. I feel we fit here very well,” she said.
“Bianco” behind St. Ann’s Warehouse [45 Water St. at New Dock Street in Dumbo, (718) 254–8779, www.nofit
