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It was a sightseeing trip with a difference for Adelaide-based circus company Gravity & Other Myths, who have taken to a gusty Sydney Harbour to showcase their skills.
With no safety nets, the troupe relies on strength, balance, agility and teamwork to create their unique style of acrobatic art.
In their latest show Backbone, the company explores themes around strength in all its forms.
"Our trade, what we do — acrobatics — is about lifting heavy things and throwing people in the air so physical strength is second nature to us. But we kind of discovered that there's a lot more to it than meets the eye," performer Lachlan Binns said.
Lewie West said some of the manoeuvres in the show are the hardest he had ever done in his extensive career.
"Our safety line is the other people, the other acrobats, there to catch you if you fall over," he said.
Made up of a core group of close friends who had worked together in the youth circus scene, they ran away to the circus and formed their own company in 2009.
Director Darcy Grant joined the company two years ago and oversees the ensemble, which creates and directs its own work.
"I think Gravity & Other Myths are in lots of ways the love child of the Australian circus scene and they've owned the new wave of circus which is kind of stripped of any artifice."
"They take off all of the layers of theatricality, they'll be themselves but then they also make you feel stuff."
The members very nearly ran away from the circus in order to pursue a real job five years ago, until a chance encounter in a remote West Australian town.
"We had 12 people in the audience — we almost cancelled the show because that was almost as many audience members as performers," founding member Jacob Randell said.
"But then after the show someone who knew someone in the Edinburgh Fringe said: 'That show was great, you need to get to Edinburgh, here's a mobile number, call them and get yourselves over there.'"
The company has not looked back since, putting university degrees on hold to tour around Australia and internationally for 11 months of the year.
And he doesn't regret putting his career in chemical engineering to the side.
"[Chemical engineering] had its charm but I'm pretty happy with where I am right now to be honest. I definitely have a lot more fun."
Fellow acrobat Jascha Boyce agreed.
"We kind of had this moment of going do we want to make this our career or do we want to stop and do other things and it was an amazing deciding moment for us," he said.
"We really try and push ourselves a lot with each show we do. While we're on the road we train we're not only performing we're training — it's kind of what keeps it exciting for us."
The company is performing its latest work Backbone at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre as part of the Sydney Festival before touring to the US and Europe.
Topics: performance-art, arts-and-entertainment, carnivals-and-festivals, events, sydney-2000, nsw
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