One Fell Swoop Circus: In Common

Presented at Frankston Arts Centre, as part of the 2026 South Side Festival, One Fell Swoop Circus’s In Common, is a stunning feat of physical storytelling that fuses acrobatics, sound and human connection into something genuinely affecting.

Co-directed by Charice Rust and Jonathan Morgan, this sixty-minute work has at its core, an impressive eight-metre tensegrity structure of steel and rope, animated by an exceptional ensemble: Charice Rust, Jonathan Morgan, Easa Min-Swe, Claire Bindoff, Sarah Gray and Gabi Platus.

This structure pulses with a level of danger, trust and grace. Every climb, fall and catch feels dependent on a collective effort, perfectly embodying the work’s meditation on the social safety net and our shared responsibility to one another.

What makes In Common so compelling is the way its technical brilliance never overshadows its emotional core. The performers move through a variety of apparatus including Chinese pole, tightwire, slack-rope, corde lisse and aerial straps with precision, yet the performance never feels like a display of tricks.

Instead, every act of balance and counterbalance becomes a conversation about vulnerability, interdependence and care. The audience is drawn into a visceral understanding of what it means to hold others up — and to allow oneself to be held in return.

The production design is equally sublime. John Collopy’s lighting sculpts the space with a cinematic style, casting hues across the performance space and structure in constantly evolving forms. Harriet Oxley’s costumes move fluidly with the performers, while Emma Kelly delivers a mesmerising soundscape that hums beneath the action like a living heartbeat.

In Common is contemporary circus at its most ambitious – intellectually rich, visually stunning and emotionally resonant. One Fell Swoop Circus has created a work that reminds us that resilience is never an individual act, but something built together, strand by strand.