SICK of jugglers, mime artists, and people who dress up as Roman statues?
Don’t worry the Freo International Street Arts Festival has lots of surprises up its sleeve, including KICKFLIP.
Created by lively duo Ella Norton and Jess Smart, the high-energy comedy circus show will be held at various pitches across the port city including Esplanade Park and the National Hotel.
• Just Gal Pals as rad teenage skateboarders.
“It’s a drag circus bromance,” Norton says.
“There’s a large focus on theatre and comedy and it’s me and Jess playing two teenage boys Oscar and Jacob—two slightly loserish boys with a big dream who want to become pro skateboarders.
“There on a journey of self-discovery and self-love and trying to make it happen for themselves.”
Unlike others street performances, KICKFLIP has a strong narrative and was originally a 50-minute show at Fringe World.
For the Street Arts Festival, it’s been cut down to a more punchy 30 minutes.
“I used to be a drama teacher and really started my performing journey doing musical theatre and performing arts,” Smart says.
“We really like to do more performance and character-centred work over I guess a more gymnastics, structure-based circus approach.”
Norton says they drew on their experience with goofy adolescent boys to write the show.
“It’s really been a long form character study on all the teenage boys that we’ve interacted with in Circus over the years, and Jess being a high school teacher,” she says.
“And just walking down the street, you see these guys everywhere and you’re like ‘Oh, there’s so much content here’.
“Teenage boys do the stupidest stuff and they’re so funny.”
The pair first met at CircusWA about 10 years ago, before going on to work together at Yuck Circus. They have performed in countless shows and performances over the years, including the Freo International Street Arts festival.
In recent years they founded their own production company Just Gal Pals.
Most folk in the arts sector have a day job, but Norton and Smart have managed to eke out a full-time living in circus by having their fingers in lots of Bozo the Clown pies—workshops, lessons, corporate gigs, shows and more.
Norton grew up in Freo, attending John Curtin College of the Arts, and now lives in Hilton.
“I started going to circus school when I was about 11,” she says.
It’s the first time KICKFLIP has been performed as a street show, so the girls are excited and raring to go.
“We’ve got microphones, we’ve got speakers, we can shout as loud as we want!”
The Fremantle International Street Arts Festival is on April 3-6. The first performance of KICKFLIP is Saturday 2pm at the Esplanade Park pitch. For more info and programme see streetartsfestival.com.au.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK