off to join the
ircus
By Melissa Walsh
C
ecilia Martin grew up as an only child, and with Spanish as her first language, she was communicating with her friends through movement before she could communicate verbally. Surrounded by sport, music and art growing up she found a passion for circus early on. This year CC, as she is known at Circa HQ, joined the Contemporary Circus, and is co-creator of the new show Humans, showing at Frankston Arts Centre on Wednesday August 22. Peninsula Essence talks to CC about running away and joining the circus.
How did you decide that you wanted to be a circus performer? When I was a kid my mum pushed me to do lots of different things. In the school holidays she would send me to something different to learn or try and one of them was the circus. I loved it from the start and continued doing circus training from the time I was eight, all the way to the end of year 12. There is actually a big culture of kid’s circus in Australia so it was easy to find. After that I went to the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) in Melbourne and now have my first gig at Circa. What do you specialise in with your performing? I have been developing myself as an aerialist for the past few years but I specialise in dance trapeze and Washington trapeze, as well as performing group acrobatics. How did the job at Circa come about? I joined the company about a year and a half ago and went straight to creation, and then first performed at the Sydney Festival in 2017. Getting the job with Circa came about when I was living in Melbourne and trying to see what was out there for myself after my course. I got in touch with them and they had an ensemble member leaving so it was perfect timing. continued next page...
E ssence
38 | PENINSULA
August 2018