| Meet our staff and teachers...
Mandy
Curties (General Manager) was born in Brisbane, and studied for her
BA in Drama at the University of Queensland. She studied her Master
of Arts at Griffith University, and studied singing as a continuing
education student at the Qld Conservatorium.
Mandy learnt circus skills with Vulcana Womens Circus, and RocknRoll
Circus in Brisbane, Rodleigh Stevens Flying Trapeze on the
Gold Coast, the Circus Space in London, and clowning with Smasherati
in Perugia, Italy.
Mandy has performed at the Woodford Folk Festival. Adelaide
Festival, National Circus festivals in Tasmania, Stradbroke
Island and Mullumbimby, for Queensland Performing Arts Trust, the Powerhouse,
La Boite and Cameron Mackintosh’s touring Aida stadium show.
Mandy has a solo street performing character called Mandarella, Mistress
of Umbrella, who has appeared in London and across Australia. Mandy also
performs as the Diva of Amphitheatre in Ephesus ‘theatre, Turkey,
and around the Mediterranean.
Mesha
Smith (Administrator)
has been training in acrobatics, aerial silks, hula hoops, juggling, bungee
trapeze and circus comedy for the past two years, and has performed at
Cirque Bizirque cabarets Circus Shake Up and the Cirque
Super Summer also she has performed stilts for the Leuwin donor cocktail
party and Melbourne Cup day at Ascot for VAMMD the perth theatre
company in 2003. She completed the Challenger TAFE/ Cirque Bizirque’s
GATE course in 2004. This is her first job in Arts and Administration.
Alex
Rogers (President) has been extensively training in circus arts for
two years.
He has primarily studied trapeze and tissu, as well as 18 months of acrobatics
and 12 months of bungee trapeze. He has studied under Helene Embling,
Theaker von Ziarno, Nell Simpson and Willie Ramsay for the
aerials, and Melik Tichabaev for acrobatics. Alex also juggles
and can do diablo tricks.
Alex performed in the last two Cirque Bizirque shows Circus
ShakeUp (Aug 2003) and Cirque Super Summer (Dec 2003) with
tissu pieces and as part of the acrobatic team. Alex was also part of
the "Futcha Crew Go Bizirque" stilt project, performing
at the Fremantle Festival in November 2003 and recently at Armadale
as part of the Perth International Arts Festival. His character,
Super SeaGull, also made appearances at Cirque Super Summer
and for the Leeuwin. Alex was part of the organising team for
Cirque Super Summer and has taken an active hand in the renovation
of the Cirque Bizirque training space.
Melik Tichabaev grew up as an acrobat in a Russian circus school.
He has coached the former USSR womens' national artistic gymnastics team
at the Olympic Games three times. Melek arrived in Western Australia
in 1990, to coach at the W.A. Institute of Sport gymnastics program
as a tumbling specialist. We are delighted to work with Melek, and it
is our great pleasure to offer this opportunity to train with this world-renowned
teacher.
Helene
Embling is Western Australia's most accomplished
and experienced aerialist and teacher. She has performed in circuses all
over Europe, exploring the traditional and avant-garde extremes of her
art form. Helene has had a long association with Bizircus, since the company's
inception, and we are very fortunate to be able to work with her. Helene's
most recent performances were in the acclaimed skadada show, Electronic
Big Top, in the Sydney Festival and the Festival of Perth
in 1999.
Theaker von Ziarno Originally
from New Zealand, Theaker von Ziarno trained as a visual artist at Queensland
Colledge of Art and Griffith University, then Postgraduate studies at
the University of Western Australia.
She has produced, directed and performed in installation and performance
art projects since 1989 culminating in ' Vane Heart Artery'
an Installation and Performance Art aggregate which utilised industrial
wastelands as sites of epic promenade performance events; has contracted
as creative director of Artrage Festival in 2001, The Festival
of the Wind 2000, Written and directed projects for the Western
Australian Circus School where she teaches, contracted for Perth
International Arts Festival, Awesome Children's Festival, Lookout
Festival, and 'Deadly fusion, in the isolated North West of
Australia.
A professional Aerialist since 1997 , Theaker has performed at special
events in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and has performed her solo
aerial street show through out Europe, Brazil, Asia and Australia .She
trained with Friches Theatre Ubaine in Stilt technique, 2003 .Theaker
has her advanced riggers ticket and finds industrial rigging contracts
a healthy contrast to the 'showgirl', the artist and the mother to her
eight -year-old son Mason.
Narelle Simpson has
been performing as an aerialist and collaborative arts worker for the
past 10 years. Following a BA in Theatre Arts, she began specializing
in circus and movement, with a particular interest in aerial performance
installations and spectacle theatre. Narelle has collaborated and performed
with Eol aerialists, Mantis aerial troupe, The Lunar
Circus, Deckchair Theatre, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, DADAA WA and
appeared at numerous festivals across WA, as well as in Darwin and Hong
Kong. She has taught extensively across the State from Esperance to Arnhem
Land and directed numerous Youth Arts performance events.
Narelle teaches at the W.A. circus school Cirque Bizirque and has
been resident aerialist at Little Creatures Brewery for the past
two years. She has recently been exploring aerial puppetry cross over
mediums and is currently rehearsing Spare Parts Puppet Theatre
production ‘H2O ‘, a water puppetry spectacle to be launched
at the 2004 Festival of Perth.
Matt
Dales is
an accomplished acrobat and acrobatics teacher. He has taught young people
new and interesting ways to have fun while learning new skills in the
area of acrobatics at Jungle Gym for the past 9 years as well as training
and practising Capoeira with Batus and Samba de Roda.
He
has taught at Cirque Bizirque for the past 3 years. Matt performs
duo acrobatics with his acrobatic balancing partner Elizabeth, and performers
solo as a hand stander and tumbler performer.
Simon Walsh Simon hails
from Queensland, and has studied Jazz at the Conservatorium of WA.
He plays bass guitar, percussion, flute, trombone, jaw harp and many other
instruments. Simon has toured with Woolongong’s Circus Monoxide,
and with Toy box Circus, and Reg Bolton’s Suitcase
Circus. Simon juggles seven balls, five clubs and other objects like
devil sticks, fire clubs, poi, cigar boxes, walks on stilts and unicycles.
Simon
has taught circus skills at WAAPA for three years and with Cirque
Bizirque for the past two years. He has worked for Rip It Up
for youth festivals for many years. His character is called Captain Quirk,
a space traveler in a silly funky sci-fi show.
Scott
Kuhn
blew in from Queensland, and worked as a carpenter for 12 years. He graduated
from the Total Theatre school of circus and performance and is
now pursuing a career as a performer and teacher of circus skills. The
Great Scott performs solo skills on the streets and on stage, doing object
manipulation including devil sticks, diabolo, balls, clubs, fire clubs,
he can also ride a unicycle as well as doing comedy and improvisation.
His other characters include Tex McCloud the midget cowboy, and the tall
French guy, on stilts, he also performs devil sticks with a tennis racket.
Richard Seidel
In 1983
Richard developed an interest B-Boying after seeing a National Geographic
video of the Lincoln Centre Outdoor Battle with the Rock Steady Crew and
rival B-Boys The Dynamic Rockers. He was so taken by the art form that
he started his first crew in 1984 with a couple of mates at school called
e-zy Rap (sounds Wak now!).
From 1984 - 1986 he toured to regional centers doing performances and
holding workshops. At the end of 1986 he developed a children’s theatre
performance with Magpie Theatre Company SA called ‘Animal Acts’
Directed by Geoffrey Rush (recent
winner of a Golden Globe).
He then went on to study dance at the Centre for the Performing Arts South
Australia for two years, graduating at the end of 1988. The following
year Richard and his father started a theatre company called Stretch MK
1 which toured to over nineteen countries.
Although his dance direction had changed, he has always maintained his
foundation and kept his eyes peeled for any B-Boy action, taking up any
opportunity to jam with B-Boys in Japan, the United States, South America
and France.
In the last five years he hasheld B-Boying workshops in SA, ACT, NT and
WA. During this time he hastaught more than six thousand young people
to throw themselves at the ground and miss.
At present Richard isworking on B-Boy projects at John Curtin College
of the Arts, Hampton Senior High and Willetton Senior High.
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