Flying Fruit Fly Circus, the world famous youth circus, celebrates 40 years on tour to Alice Springs

The Department of Tourism, Sport and Culture’s Araluen Arts Centre invites you to step back in time to 1940s rural Australia and meet the play-loving kids who live behind a junkyard in Flying Fruit Fly Circus’ exhilarating show, JUNK.

“The Flying Fruit Fly Circus is recognised as one of the world’s leading youth arts companies and we are very excited to have them visiting Alice Springs as part of their 40th Anniversary tour,” Acting Director of the Araluen Cultural Precinct, Mr Micheal Smith said.

“A cast of young artists aged 10 to 18 years old, who are based in Albury-Wodonga, will take your breath away with their jaw-dropping acrobatics, magical shadow puppetry and world-class circus skills.”

JUNK is an inventive exploration of the changing world of childhood, set in a time before kids had access to television, computers and expensive toys. The 17 young artists use only their imagination to transform household trash into a magical landscape of thrilling circus adventures and incorporate games such as noughts and crosses, tricycle-riding, elastics and hopscotch.

JUNK is the result of an intergenerational research process where the Flying Fruit Fly Circus engaged in interviews with elders at their local nursing home to ask them about games they played as children.

“The voices of the elders who were interviewed are used as sound sources, and are interspersed with music and songs from the 1940s, as well as live interludes from the performers playing instruments including a washboard, percussion and a junked piano,” Mr Smith said.

Executive Director and Producer of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Richard Hull, said “JUNK asks some relevant questions about how children are allowed to dream, imagine and discover risk in our modern day society.”

The Flying Fruit Fly Circus was founded in 1979 as a holiday project for local youth and is perhaps Australia’s most successful cultural community development project, continuing to enrich the lives of many young Australians.

JUNK will be live onstage at the Araluen Arts Centre on Saturday 6 April, 7.00pm and Monday 8 April, 1.00pm and 7.00pm.

Ticket prices are $25.00 for adults, $22.50 for concession and $20.00 for Araluen Arts Centre Members. Araluen Arts Centre Members with a concession card can purchase tickets for $17.50. School groups are only $15.00.

Tickets are available online at www.araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au or from the Araluen Box Office on (08) 8951 1122.

Images: JUNK by the Flying Fruit Fly Circus. Photos by Ian Sutherland