Foreword: This is the first of the ‘COVID time Capsules’ an unpublished article from 2021 that Jake Silvestro had generously taken the time to write and due to COVID times mental Health induced hiatus it had never been published. Big thanks to Jake and I hope you enjoy this little throwback article. Hx
Tempo by The Flying Fruit Fly Circus – July 2021
Words & Photos by Jake Silvestro
Scattered over the last 6 months I have had the enormous pleasure of directing the new touring school show by the Flying Fruit Fly Circus.
Anni Davey (Artistic Director, FFFC) handed me a winning combination of an excited group of multidisciplinary acrobats, a few weeks rehearsal time and a grand piano. Working with these 12 young acrobats, Ania Reynolds (Musical Director) and Lauren Shepard (Show Trainer) over the last few months, we have made the second iteration of this new work and I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it’s turned out. Like everything in our lives right now, the lens of COVID coloured our vision when writing our show concept; “TEMPO is the latest work by ‘The Eastern Metropolitan Philharmonic Orchestra’, who had planned on touring Australia with their new performance only to find themselves locked down in quarantine the night of the opening performance…but the show must go on and luckily the Flying Fruit Flies are here to help! These young acrobats don’t know a thing about classical music… but how hard can it be when you have a piano?” Tempo plays with the idea that these amazing young acrobats are doing their best to fill the brief with the skills they have, ‘be an orchestra…but do flips’. One of the great things about this project was that Anni was able to cast exceptional musicians in the show which gave this work an edge that reminded me of an old-school Circus Oz, where the lines of cast and band were always blurred. This might also have to do with the fact that the incredible Ania Reynolds, (former Musical Director at Circus Oz) has been involved in this new project as Musical Director and composer. If you are familiar with Ania’s work you can no doubt imagine the exceptional soundtrack we had. Ania wrote the music for the show and worked extensively with some of the cast members to prepare them to play live in the show. Besides the piano, we also have a saxophone, clarinet, and electric guitar (what can’t these kids do!?),
The talent of this cast astounds me, they do some circus skills that are enviable of experienced professional artists, they play live music for about half the show and once the show begins it’s entirely in their hands, with almost no help from any of the adults (The FFFC crew are close by just in case, and for the most part we get to kick back and enjoy the show, again and again, a delight to say the least). Seeing kid-filled audiences come into school halls to see a show built and performed by other kids was special, and from my perspective, was exciting to see the potentially lifelong memories being made.
For some of these kids in regional NSW, this likely could be the first circus show they’ve seen in their lives! I think many of us have a childhood memory of the first time the circus came to visit our town, and TEMPO was that experience for some of these children.
During June 2021, we toured to 6 schools in NSW and performed to a little over 1,500 young people across 10 performances. While I’m not much of a photographer, I am passionate about record keeping and wanted to try and capture some of the backstage moments that happened on the road.
Please enjoy these little snippets of touring youth circus today, which seems so rare in this COVID world.
To the FFFC, the best in the biz, thank you so much for letting me come and play, it’s been unforgettable, and to the cast of TEMPO, you are all rockstars! I can’t thank you enough for your creative energy, your boundless talent, and your sense of humour. I can’t wait to get this show back on the road!
Jake Silvestro
PHOTOS!
Bottom Row Left to Right: Tal Shemesh, Ava Paydon, Kez Sutton, Arthur Hull, Lucie Mariethoz, Peter Giasoumi
A video link to the Tempo promo
The development of TEMPO was supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW, as part of Arts Restart.
About Jake Silvestro
Jake is a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on acrobatics, theatre, and visual art. His artistic output over the last decade has explored narrative, collaboration of forms and acrobatic research.
He has toured with the internationally successful Circus OZ, CIRCA, Casus, Company 2, Dislocate, Lingua Franca, and G.O.P (DEU).
As well as working with many small to medium-sized arts companies around the world.
Jake was the founder and director of Poncho Circus (a Canberra based circus company) which produced and toured physical theatre productions between 2012 – 2017 around Australia.
Outside of the touring work he has maintained many of his own creative projects.
Check out more at: jakesilvestro.com
Check out more about the Fruities – fruitflycircus.com.au
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