THE CIRCUS OF SECOND CHANCES

Premiered May 2022, Yaw Theater
PNW Tour: Seattle & Portland September 2022
Seattle, June 2024
San Juan Islands August 2024
Tour: Philadelphia, Brattleboro, New York, Boston November 2024
PNW Tour: TBA Spring 2025

On a relentless quest for wonder, three veteran acrobats let their imaginations run wild to fulfill secret longings. Fluent in the language of circus, Acrobatic Conundrum’s principal performers melt the fourth wall to reveal their fatal flaws and journeys to redemption. In our homes we are out at sea, on our living room couch we find ourselves on an epic odyssey; so much rests upon the fate of a dozen lemons.

Leveraging their long running friendships with each other, Emma Curtiss, Melissa Knowles, and Terry Crane put all their talents and quirky craftiness into this dada circus romp. They climb, cavort, invert, revert, and subvert in a capricious acrobatic tale for the ages. Featuring trapezes, ropes, Cyr wheel, equilibrism, handbalancing, + clown. 

Original Music Composed by: Kamila

Artistic Instigation: Elizabeth Klob
Artistic Eye + Clown Consulting: Rebecca Renfrow
Lighting Designer: Stella Kutz

CIRQUE DE PAMPLEMOUSSE

Envision, Vita, Costa Rica March 2023
Lopez Center, Lopez Island July 2023

This exclusive performance will feature the company’s most daring, graceful and hilarious performers. While somersaulting, pirouetting and precariously balancing, the troupe will make a fruit smoothie of life, death and rebirth. Blending together their distinct flavor profiles, each of the performers adds a fruit and flavor to the mix.

The performances will spotlight aerial acts, partner acrobatics, dance and comedy. Don’t miss this heady draught of acrobatics and comedy, a bracing curative for souls in need of connection and inspiration.

Envision Performers included Terry Crane, Leila Noone, Ty Vennewitz, Maureen Monroe, Leila Noone, Hannah Bartlett, and Kamila Nasr.

Lopez Island Performers included Terry Crane, Christine Morano, Nick Harden, Wendy Harden, Julaine Hall and Hanae Sambe. The shows are appropriate for all ages.

VOLUME 9: THRESHOLDS

Performed December 1-23, 2022
12th Avenue Arts, Seattle

A door defends. And beckons. It divides. And offers a way in. The circumstances change and an opening we took for granted is lost forever; meanwhile the unexpected saunters in through a window left ajar. In Vol. 9: Thresholds, nine acrobats somersault their way into liminal space, ready to knock on the portal to the unknown. Darting back and forth across the fourth wall, pursuing the thrill of the edge, and pausing only briefly with one hand poised on the knob, Acrobatic Conundrum shares its paean to the doorways of our lives and the opportunities they represent. Because when one door closes, a trapdoor opens. 

Aerial arts, cyr wheel, acrobatics, clown, musical performances

Featuring: Emma Curtiss, Oliver Donaldson, Dream Frohe, Leah Jones, PJ Perry, Ivanna Wei, Duo MariOli, Jody Poth, Gabby Leiva, Maria Tanitsoi, and Terry Crane

Artistic Direction by Terry Crane.

Rigging support from On Sight Access.
Coproduction partner: SANCA, The School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts.
Sponsored in part by Ballard Reuse.

VOLUME 8: CIRCUS FORETOLD

December 2021

10 acrobats flip and pirouette to thwart or realize their destiny, and each domino topples its neighbor in a catty-wompus frolic through the whimsical landscape of cause and effect. Featuring aerial hoop, rope, contortion, handbalancing, Cyr wheel, and group acrobatics.

Featuring: Domitil Aillot, Jordie Campbell**, Emma Curtiss, Elena Gatilova, Melissa Knowles, Katie Lynch*, Rachel Nehmer, Jessica Perry, Hana Sambe*, Jacki Ward**, Ivanna Wei, Ben Wendel.

*Performed December 10-13
**Performed December 16-19

RISING SIDEWAYS

A Circus Show at the Dawn of a New Era

Premiered Summer 2021

PNW Tour: Seattle, San Juan Islands, Portland

In a world turned upside-down, Acrobatic Conundrum proposes a theatrical rite to embrace the inversion of our time. Ascending in spirals, somersaulting through the air, and alighting with ease, a circus company embodies how we can be disoriented and poised at once. With all the passion and purpose that only eighteen months of solitudinous circus training can evoke, the performers of Acrobatic Conundrum are ready to channel the dancing, flipping sublime once again. Celebrate our collective wishes for the way ahead, even as we grieve our lost time. Cherish the extraordinary present like never before.

Featuring: Jordie Campbell, Terry Crane, Emma Curtiss, Nick Harden, Julaine Hall, Jacki Ward Kehrwald, Katie Lynch, Rose Levit, Eric McKeethan, Jill Marissa, Mari Sharpe, Hanae Sambe, Rachel Nehmer

BETWEEN DREAMS: a cinematic circus experience

Online video during Covid lockdown, April 2021

While Covid-19 holds the world in suspense, twelve circus performers are reeling... With nowhere to perform, no way to gather, and no audience to share with, they are forced to change the way they dream. When the walls close in, paint your own way out. When no one is watching, perform like there’s no tomorrow. When words can’t capture your meaning, make your own language.

In 216,000 frames, a.k.a. 90 minutes, more than a dozen circus artists perform as though their lives depend on it, for an audience captive across time and space. Follow your guide, a wandering soul in search of his lost performance past, along this madcap journey. Nostalgia gives way to something wilder. He discovers the present, rife with dangers, detours, and delightful opportunities. Real acrobatic acts are meticulously curated one painstaking shot at a time. At once a circus show and a movie, this work belongs to a genre all of its own, a circus “shmoooovie.”

Featuring: Madi Ward, Sierra Camille, Faeble Kievman, Ty + Maureen Monroe, Marie-Eve D., Xochitl Sosa + Chantal, Jenn Bruyer, Carolina Cabanas, Saffi Watson, Juliane Hall, Jessica Perry, Jess Niven, and David + Blaze of Flynn Creek Circus.

VOLUME 7: ALONE TOGETHER

A collaboration between 24 artists and Acrobatic Conundrum, this digital performance was published on December 26th, 2020.

This curated video cabaret, an Acrobatic Conundrum Volume unlike any we’ve done before, showcases short films, each of which combine circus disciplines with film storytelling. PG-rated for suggestive behavior and adult themes. Exploring the cinematic medium, we bring you intimate glimpses of humanity alongside the super-humanity of circus. Both are sorely need in these times. Acrobatic Conundrum Volume 7 features many members of the AC family, as well as a few new artists we’ve been admiring over the years.

Featuring: Naami Wagner; Ty Vennewitz & Maureen Monroe (with Baby Lux) with Dane Vennewitz Rafe Kelley
Terry Crane & Kelsey Wagner; Jenn Bruyer; Rachel Strickland; Jessica Perry; Enrique Escajada; Xochitl Sosa; Mari Sharpe; Kevin Ruddell, Julaine Hall, Katie Lynch, Enrique Escajada, Terry Crane, Annika Frodi-Lundgren, Deon Fox, Lauren Joy Herley, Jessie Perry, Eve Diamond, Jordie Campbell, Maureen Monroe, PJ Perry, Nick Ng, Una Bennett, Madi Ward; Faeble Kievman

UNRAVELING

December 2019

Unraveling comprises a simple, devastating premise: 15 vertical rope artists share the stage to elevate their aerial medium in a genre-innovating cirque opus. A mixed cast of Seattle-based and international artists, including alumnus of Cirque du Soleil, Teatro Zinzanni and the Montreal National Circus School, bring all their acrobatic prowess to this work.

With Conundrum’s signature style of mixing relatable humanity alongside breathtaking athleticism, “Unraveling” explores themes of interdependence, mortality, and love.

Featuring: Terry Crane, Lauren Herley, Eve Diamond, PJ Perry, Nick Ng, Jordie Campbell, Alex Allan, Kevin Ruddell, Deon Fox, Audrey Moreland, Julaine Hall, Katie Lynch, Charlotte Kasal, Skittle Cheshire, Jorge Garza

VOLUME 6: SOMETHING STOLEN

November 2018

The acts we see on stage strike us with their originality and timeliness, we seldom learn the questionable origins or borrowed elements behind them. This year, in Acrobatic Conundrum’s annual curated cabaret, a talented team of acrobats and circus performers reveal the sources of their inspiration. Volume 6 is an homage to circus past, art translated into movement, and thrilling feats that plagiarize life experience itself. An all star ensemble of circus performers, with music from Faith Stankovich (aka Liberty Strikes), take away your breath with impossible grace, even as they unravel the inner workings before your very eyes. 

Featuring: Terry Crane, Emma Curtiss, Maureen & Ty Monroe, Nick & Wendy Harden, Faeble Kievman, Melissa Knowles, Rachel Nehmer, Emiliano Ron, Cooper Stanton.

Directed by Ty Monroe

THE FIG TREE WALTZES

Premiered 2017

Time is running out, and you have to make a choice - him or her? Stay or go? Love or freedom? Risk more or cut losses? You only get one. As the remaining minutes of our life diminish, the game of life weighs on us. No matter what we choose, we lose an opportunity, and destiny hems us in with every step.

But, in Acrobatic Conundrum’s The Fig Tree Waltzes, you can choose it all. It's a world where opposite outcomes coexist, a world of infinite possibility and opportunities to play. Strong women hang from lofty trapezes and bearded men spin in hoops wearing skirts. A group of acrobats dance, tumble, and tell stories in the language of circus. In shadows cast by stage light, mirrored realities show us the paths not taken.

This show is inspired by Sylvia Plath, whose conceit imagined all her possible futures as ripe figs falling from a tree. It features music from Finnish composer Petteri Rajanti, choreography devised by Costa Rica’s premier dance director Jimmy Ortiz, and the defiant grace of the Conundrum acrobats. The Fig Tree Waltzes is truly a dance to spite our destiny.

Featuring: Terry Crane, Yuko Hata, Melissa K. Knowles, Xochitl Sosa, Cooper Stanton

Artistic Direction: Terry Crane and Acrobatic Conundrum
Stage Manager: Nina Gershy
Composer: Petteri Rajanti
Choreographer: Jimmy Ortiz Chinchilla
Created by: Caterina Albani, Terry Crane, Melissa K. Knowles, Xochitl Sosa, Cooper Stanton
Assistant to the Choreographer: Grei Quezac
Costume Design: Xochitl Sosa
Lighting Design: Bryce Bartl-Geller
Artistic Consultants: Marie-Éve Dicaire, Marie-Josée Gauthier, Krin Haglund

VOLUME 5: KNOW NO BOUNDARIES

December 2017

Every year, Acrobatic Conundrum curates a cabaret, adding a new “Volume” to the ever evolving story of circus. Each Volume is a world unto itself, featuring original pieces - long and short - from circus artists of all stripes. There’s no telling what’s in store for Volume 5, but it’s guaranteed to be filled with jaw-dropping, knee-slapping, thought-provoking, and heart-filling circus.

Directed by: Ty Vennewitz

Featuring (December 1 - 3): Anna Thomas-Henry, Cooper Stanton, Emma Curtis, Mark Siano, Melissa Knowles, Terry Crane, Ty Vennewitz, The Gentiles.
Featuring (December 8 - 10): Anna Thomas-Henry, Cooper Stanton, Emma Curtis, Mark Siano, Terry Crane, Ty Vennewitz, Saar Rombout.

Live music by: Faith Stankevich, Laurie Miller, Andy Stoller

VOLUME 4

VOLUME 3

April 2015

“Volume 3” brings to the stage what the audience normally doesn’t see; the offstage lives of the artists are revealed through this performance using avant-garde techniques and set designs.

LANGUAGE OF CHANCE

Premiered 2014

“Language of Chance” is a performance inspired by “The Library of Babel,” a story by magical realist author Jorge Luis Borges. The story—and the performance in turn—deals with themes of infinity and reality and the images of labyrinths.

The acrobats combine dance, theater and circus acts to create a new form of storytelling, accompanied by an original music score. This is the homecoming performance for the Acrobatic Conundrum troupe, as they have just returned from a tour.

Two new performance pieces were created especially for this show. The first, titled “A Book is Not a Ladder,” was created by Seattle-based choreographer and director KT Niehoff. The piece is inspired by the sensation of falling forever. Niehoff also designed the set and costumes for the show and wrote the sound score in collaboration with electronic musician Pietro Ravanni.

The second piece, created by UMO Ensemble director Elizabeth Klob, is called “Secret Passages,” and explores the theme of missed connections. It includes physical theater, clowns, circus arts and more original music by Ravanni.

Performed by: Terry Crane, Carey Cramer, Erica Rubinstein, Ty Vennewitz, Jacki Ward

LOVE AND GRAVITY

Premiered 2014

Love and Gravity presents six artists on a minimal stage with little else but their talents and hearts. The performers explore, through a tapestry-like journey, the endless ways in which we find love, support and partnership. This evening-length piece is appropriate for all ages and will leave you feeling joyful and awed by the power of human connection.

Fluent in the language of acrobatics, this cast risks all on a quest to tell honest accounts from an uncharted territory. Real life romances are portrayed through mesmerizing juggling acts, breathtaking aerial and partner acrobatics — all while balancing on a bar 20 feet in the air! This show will upend everything you thought you knew about these two laws of attraction: Love & Gravity.

Features: Carey Cramer, Terry Crane, Scotty Dont, Erica Rubinstein, Xochitl Sosa, Ty Vennewitz, with local special guests on North American tour.

THE WAY OUT

Premiered 2013.

Eight strangers find themselves in a room with no exit. They are isolated from the world in a bunker where supplies are scarce. In the absence of enough, the new arrivals see themselves in a different light: vindictive and kind, desperate and hopeful. With no allies but each other, 8 disparate personalities vie for survival, connection, and a way out.

“The Way Out” is 90 minutes of heart-stopping acrobatics, aerial, theater and dance. It is a truly contemporary form of storytelling, using the raw physicality of the performers, video projection, the choreography of Elizabeth Rose and artistic direction of Terry Crane. “The Way Out” spotlights a small company of 8 acrobats with their hearts on their sleeves and their calluses worn smooth. 

Choreography: Elizabeth Rose, artistic direction by Terry Crane.

Featuring: Tanya Brno, Marta Brown, Arne Bystrom, Emma Curtiss, Tyler Ferraro, Elizabeth Rose, Jonathan Rose

CONTEMPORARY CIRCUS FLIGHT

FREE PERFORMANCE!

Let Acrobatic Conundrum be your circus sommelier!

Contemporary Circus Flight is totally free, totally short, and totally varied. During this half-hour long show, you’ll sample a range of short circus works accompanied by informal commentary. Whether you’re totally new to circus or a contemporary circus aficionado, the Contemporary Circus Flight is a fun way to get a taste for what’s happening under the big tent we call circus.

VOLUME 2

Acrobats risk it all for a chance at a new beginning. We invite you to join the circus artists, musicians, and storyteller of the Acrobatic Conundrum to celebrate symbolic death and rebirth. Using the ancient practices of circus performance and spoken story, the troupe rings in the next Mayan long count with its new tradition of live art ceremony. This second volume is an ode to taking risks, facing fears, and the ability of all people to begin anew and live by their own rules.

Featuring: Wendy Allen, Zora Blade, Tanya Brno, Marta Brown, Arne Bystrom, Terry Crane, Emma Curtiss, Sol Doran, Joselynn Engstrom, Tyler Ferraro, Tom Hanna, Nick Harden, Nick Lowery, Jonathan Rose, Erica Rubinstein, Will Smith, Jacki Ward

Artistic direction by Terry Crane

Produced by Terry Crane & Joselynn Engstrom

January 18th + January 19th, 2013; SANCA

VOLUME 1

2012

Since 2012, Acrobatic Conundrum curated a cabaret, adding a new “Volume” to the ever evolving story of circus. Each Volume is a world unto itself, featuring original pieces - long and short - from circus artists of all stripes.