This young group – a fair proportion looked to be under 18 – are all members of the South Australian Circus Centre’s Development Program (they also referred to it as CirKids). Everything was really well done and the choreography was excellent. They included the audience from the outset by having a lone girl sitting on stage meditating while the calming voice over the PA asked us all to close our eyes, breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth and let all our tensions go.

Then the action started with various acrobatics – quite calm at first with some amazing feats of agility and examples of rubber backbones!! There were numerous acts to show off the individual unique skills as well as in both small and large groups. One of the inspiring bits of information was that the entire musical score was written by one of the 18 year-old girls and was available for a free download link if you took the time to meet her outside after the event.

This show was full of the usual mind-blowing acrobatic feats of balance, poise, flexibility and strength but it is always in your mind … the age of these kids! While much of the program revolved around calmness and breathing, the final minutes was full-on with the kids getting thrown all over the stage (literally!) and some very impressive human towers (see photo below – excuse the quality but taken on my phone from some distance).

Breathe is an outstanding performance by dedicated and enthusiastic young local kids. It is a family show and is highly recommended – though some of the very young toddlers became a bit restless and lost concentration mid-way through the performance so there were a few parents taking their little ones outside to calm them down!