Jodie Farrugia has a child’s, and perhaps, an adult’s dream job too, as she works for The Flying Fruit Fly Circus.
The circus as well as performance, provides learning opportunities in the circus arts for young people. After their initial training with the circus many of these young people go on to join other famous circuses such as Cirque du Soleil and Circus Oz.
This year The Flying Fruit Fly Circus visits Tasmania with their production ‘A Circus under My Bed!’ Jodie Farrugia is the director and choreographer with an impressive resume as a circus performer herself, a gifted gymnast with a Bachelor of Education in Dance.
Jodie’s family immigrated from Malta and she has dual citizenship. Jodie says that as a young girl of immigrant parents in suburban Melbourne arts and culture were her passion. Jodie has even returned to Malta to perform some of her work.
Jodie says that before language develops children connect to the visual story such as that portrayed in ‘Circus under my bed’. The production aims to speak to young children in a language they can understand but also not so simplistic that it doesn’t challenge them. The performance encourages young people to explore dreams and imagination and hopes to awaken them to all the creative possibilities the world offers.
The show is such that grandparents can come along with their grandchildren for a shared experience that both can enjoy, understand and be challenged by.
Jodie gives an insight into the imagination of children when she recounts the story of her daughter asking her when they moved house about whether they had to pack up and take the light switches with them!
The next production for the circus will involve exploring the effect of the technological toys on today’s children and how they might dim children’s imaginations. The kind of toys that do remarkable things at the press of the button. It follows that children are at a loss when presented with a toy that needs their imaginative input. Flying Fruit Fly Circus hopes to halt that by developing these same children’s imaginations.
You can see ‘A Circus under my bed!’ at the Theatre Royal on the following dates:
Sat 19 Mar 2016 2:00pm
Sat 19 Mar 2016 7:30pm
Sun 20 Mar 2016 2:00pm
Tue 22 Mar 2016 7:30pm
Paula Xiberras
