countryarts.org.au/contact_us/13_04_07_circus_oz_pt_lin -
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Published on: 4/13/2007
Last Visited: 7/4/2008
Artistic Director Mike Finch said, "We've headhunted five new performers and they've had a fantastic influence on this show, new bodies, new ideas, new energy.
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Cast members and the Director, Mike Finch are available for interviews.See director's biog below.More Information at www.circusoz.com
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Mike is Circus Oz's Artistic Director.
Mike grew up in Armidale and, after leaving high school, enrolled in a science degree, but deferred twice.After a highly fruitful period on unemployment benefits, he applied to study journalism at what was then Mitchell College (now Charles Sturt University), in Bathurst.The college also offered the innovative and critically acclaimed Theatre and Media Course, which specialised in Site Specific Outdoor Performance, Popular and Political Theatre, Circus, Comedy and Devised Performance.Mike soon decided to switch from journalism to theatre, and never looked back.
While in Bathurst Mike also trained as a juggler and acrobat, learnt some cinematography, designed sets and posters for theatre, taught media production and journalism and performed on the street as a circus busker.He was a founding member of Precarious, a contemporary circus company based in Bathurst and The Banana Brothers (a long-running three-man street performance company, which folded when, in two unconnected incidents, one guy became a Jehovah's Witness and the other guy died).
At a certain point in Mike's training, he realised he had an equal interest in circus and film production and made a clear decision based on the fact that it is possible to direct movies as an old man, but almost impossible to do a standing backsault.So in 1996 he focused all his energy on a Precarious production called Circus Monoxide, which eventually hit the road in a convoy of giant black and yellow striped buses.Throughout 1997 he lived with eight other performers in bunks upstairs in a double-decker bus.They travelled the entire eastern seaboard of Australia performing an outdoor circus show that folded off the side of the bus.Amazingly there were no fights.This project is the subject of his ongoing Masters Degree.
Mike is interested in making work that is funny, spectacular, accessible and, as often as possible, a bit subversive.
Mike first joined Circus Oz as a work experience student, with responsibilities for making coffee, mostly, and is still surprised that when he rejoined the company several years later it was as Artistic Director.He sees his role at Circus Oz as overseeing the facilitation of a creative team of highly talented collaborators, rather than the imposition of a singular artistic vision (which is lucky, because otherwise there'd be trouble).
When not on tour with the performing ensemble, Mike spends most of his time at the Circus Oz home base in Melbourne, and his weekends out the back fitting out a bus as a mobile home (complete with roof garden).
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