If You Build It | High Tide Circus

On a muggy Sunday afternoon in Vulcana Circus’s headquarters in Morningside, High Tide Circus premiered their latest work, If You Build It, a high energy circus cabaret inspired by the items for loan in the Brisbane Tool Library (BTL), Queensland’s first not-for-profit ‘library of things’. The troop gave their all to the delight of the audience, with acts inspired by a random mix of tools that showcased their chops as performers and their impressive variety of circus skills. Little did we know what a journey they’d been on to premiere it for us.

Debuting If You Build It was a far longer and more perilous journey for High Tide Circus than they could have predicted, and the story of its creation is as good as the review of the show itself. Their ability to overcome the reange of obstacles thrown at them shows their tenacity and passion for circus and we’re all the better for it. 

First, they secured the perfect theme for the cabaret with their partnership with the BTL. And this is what the Anywhere Fest is all about, performances in non-traditional venues. The troop’s vision was grand; perform the cabaret at the BTL, which is perched on the banks of the Brisbane River near GOMA. Perfect location, perfect collaboration, perfect for Anywhere Fest.

Then came the 2022 floods.

A lesser company would have given up after this hurdle, but High Tide Circus pressed on, finding an a space outside of the Vulcana studio in Morningside that looked close enough to construction site. They’d overcome their massive hurdle and were ready once again to premiere their show. And then boom, a week of constant rain before the show was set to debut.

Still they didn’t give up and luckily the third time was actually a charm for the group, as Vulcana welcomed them to take over their studio for their show. And after a quick renno of the space, the scene was set for the chaotic goodness to come.

Sam Ellis set the tone for the afternoon’s show with a construction themed rola-bola act. His balance board was cobbled together as any good home renno job should be, with his base of balance getting progressively getting more precarious as he added more layers. There’s something about a performer’s constant teetering on the board to retain their balance in rola-bola that keeps me on the edge of my seat, particularly as he included handstand balancing and a rarely seen third level to the board. Many of us held our breath the whole act. On top of this, Sam was part clown, part M.C., and all fierce commitment throughout the cabaret, showcasing club juggling, duo acro, unicycle and a whole lot of clown. It was a great showcase of all of his talents.

Keeping us moving was the other M.C. and fellow clown Rhett Morrow. Anyone who’s followed circus over the last 10 or so years would have seen Rhett and his sister, T’la, perform around town with any number of circus troops. Rhett’s probably been on stage since the time he started to walk and it was a joy to see how far his clown has come and how natural he is on stage these days. Aiding the transition between acts, Rhett juggled, clowned, spun plates, unicycled and balanced a contraption I’ve never seen before on his head. Props to the manipulation king.

Rounding out the troop were Dan “Man Beast” Gordon, Darcie Rae and T’la Morrow

Dan brought to the stage the brute strength we’ve all started seeing in viral creative calisthenics videos, lifting his body like it weighed like a feather and defying gravity with balances on bars and on poles balanced on his fellow performers. In his first cabaret he was truly jazzed to be performing. The only downside of the acts being that he had to take off that pesky shirt of his that was impeding his movement. The audience coped.

Dan was keen to showcase as many skills and poses as possible in his acts, to the point that some of the transitions happened so quickly that I couldn’t quite appreciate the strength required for everything he was doing. I look forward to seeing what he does next as he slows down his acts he and starts to play off the audience more. His acts were quite the contrast to Dan’s dulcet tones and guitar work that warmed us up before the show began. How are all these young folk so bloody talented?

Darcie Rae brought us graceful fluidity in the air and musical stupidity on the ground. The audience could not look away as she perform lyra in flippers and effortless dance trapeze, the latter being one of the highlights of the night. Sliding in and around her apparatuses with ease, she was mesmorising. Then, she conducted all of us in a rubber chicken orchestra, because High Tide Circus loves chaos.

Last, by no means least was T’la Morrow, hoola hooper, acro flyer, head stander, neck spinner and all around boss. Always fully committed, with an amazing stage presence, it was hard to take my eyes off her when she was on stage. A highlight of the night was her high energy acro routine with Sam to the song ‘Safety Dance’, where both took turns at balancing on and playing off each other throughout the act.

I have to share one warning for punters if you find yourself at a future High Tide Circus show. If you hate the idea of being pulled on stage for a spot of audience participation, make sure that you are seated somewhere inaccessible. The troop pulled punters out of the audience to add to the multiple acts, with one shameless punter **coughmecough** being asked to do a spontaneous strip to Leave Your Hat On by Joe Cocker. I promise I conducted myself completely with dignity.

If You Build It was a raucous afternoon of entertainment, reminiscent of the renegade warehouse cabarets of the days of the Ice Cream Factory and Sean Young Studio. It was everything I love about live performance - high energy, slightly chaotic, unpredictable, a little bit loose and full of high skilled and passionate performers keen to entertain and show off their best stuff to the masses. You could definitely say they … nailed it. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

Huge props to the High Tide team for overcoming so many odds to dazzle the punters. I’m sure all in the audience will be front row centre for their next show. I know I will be.