The Georgia Straight proudly sponsors Circa: Opus at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

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      On April 28 at 8 pm, the Chan Centre presents Australian circus company Circa in the Chan Shun Concert Hall. A post-show talk with members of Circa and the Debussy Quartet will follow the performance.

      Since forming in Brisbane, Australia in 2004, Circa has become an international sensation, being called to perform in more than 35 countries. In Opus, 14 acrobats—some of whom will be suspended from the Chan Centre ceiling—will perform gravity-defying feats as they interact with the four musicians of France’s esteemed Debussy String Quartet. This genre-defying work pushes the boundaries of "nouveau cirque" to the stirring music of Dmitri Shostakovich. 

      “Circa’s Opus is a breathtaking and extremely moving work,” says Joyce Hinton, Co-Managing Director of the Chan Centre. “It is also an entirely new—and wonderfully unusual—way to experience a live performance of the Shostakovich quartets, which are beautifully played by the Debussy Quartet.”

      “If a bunch of people are going to risk life and limb every time they go on-stage, we should use the privilege that they’ve given us and given me—the use of their bodies in their prime for the few years they have as top acrobats,” Circa founder Yaron Lifschitz told the Straight in a 2011 interview. “We should do something extraordinary with that, not just amuse people. Not that I’m averse to that, but there’s more that we can do with the medium. So I’m always looking for a kind of emotionally and even spiritually resonant use of the circus, so that it can speak deeply to our humanity.”

      Tickets from $46; available in person at the Chan Centre ticket office, online, or by calling the box office at 604-822-2697.

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