Coming to Crown Theatre at the end of this month is a show promising a sexier, darker more intimate look at circus performance. ‘Le Noir: The Dark Side of Cirque’ is bringing a team of 20 award-winning performers to Perth after touring to China, Singapore and the USA. We chatted to ensemble member and cyr wheel performer David Matz about the show.
It’s Matz’s first time performing in Australia, and the Los Angeles-based performer says it’s so far one of his favourite places to perform. “I love the people, I love the environment, it’s just so gorgeous here. This has been a blast. I’m super excited to be here, it’s been on my bucket list of the places I’ve wanted to go.”
Matz isn’t the only one in the troupe visiting for the first time. “This show we have a lot of exciting new acts that we’ve never had in the show before and a lot of them are new to Australia. We’ve picked up a lot of local dancers, but most of the artists are international and a lot more from Canada and Ukraine and Russia.”
‘Le Noir”s performers are a group of award-winning athletes, some of which are former Cirque du Soleil performers. Matz says it’s a privilege to be part of such a prestigious troupe.
“It’s such a good feeling because, just being surrounded by such amazing peers, it’s really inspiring and we all get together and train and kind of share ideas before and after the shows so it’s cool.”
But circus life isn’t all back flips and unitards. “It’s totally like a family. We have poker nights, family barbeques, video game nights, a little bit of everything. We all just hang out and explore the world together.”
Matz himself has also got an impressive background, having spent the first two years of his circus career training with Chinese acrobats. “I wandered into a Chinese acrobatics class in college and just fell in love with it. It was pretty intense, while I was going to school I was training with Yin Ping Zheng of Fujian, China’s national acrobatics troupe about five days a week, four hours or so a day, two classes a day.
“It was a good foundation because they’re so specific in training everything. We would start out with wushu, which is like a dance form of martial arts, then go into tumbling and hoop diving, then Chinese poles, then aerial, then juggling, unicycling, stilt-walking, we did a little bit of everything. Then I got my first contract and the rest is history.”
Although he’s got a formidable range of skills, Matz is going to be focusing his energy on the cyr wheel, which he says is his specialty, and one of the art forms he loves most. “There’s a lot of freedom to it, you can express yourself however you want and it’s still a developing art and I’m constantly trying to create and come up with new movements and new tricks, it’s just really freeing.”
Matz says ‘Le Noir’ is offering a unique experience, even for those who’ve been to their fair share of circus performances. “It’s a more sexy, intimate circus than your typical Cirque du Soleil where everything’s really far away. You’ll have people like dancers and acrobats approaching you, touching you. It’s a lot more fun and intimate.”
Matz relishes the opportunity to have the audience up close and personal. “It works really great for me. My act seems a lot more dangerous in an intimate environment. The people in the front row that are sitting around the edge of the stage feel like I’m going to fall off at any moment and I know it’s the same for a lot of other artists.”
So if you’re thinking of attending ‘Le Noir’, you’ve got a lot of surprises in store. “Just be prepared for an interactive experience. People could be like, just getting up close and intimate or you could be getting pulled onstage, there’s a lot of different things that could happen to you. Most of that is done by a clown. He has no shame. He’ll mess with anybody. It’s a joy to watch. ”
‘Le Noir: The Dark Side of Cirque’ is at the Crown Theatre from August 28th to September 7th. Tickets available from Ticketek.
Sophie Joske
