BRATTLEBORO — Fractured, performing at the New England Center for Circus Arts on May 4 and 5, is a fully devised circus production featuring solo and ensemble feats.
The performers are members of the third and final year of the Professional Training Program (ProTrack) at NECCA.
“These are the artists writing the next chapter of circus in America,” NECCA founder and artistic director Serenity Smith Forchion said in a news release.
This production is the first time that NECCA is taking graduates on tour, including a residency at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts in New York and final shows at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro, Vt., as well as a weekend of shows at the NECCA trapezium in Brattleboro.
“This show stands apart from what NECCA has offered in the past,” explains ProTrack Program Director Jamie Hodgson. “This is our first graduating class of our three-year professional program. It is the first time NECCA's process has been devoted to the ensemble creation of a show, not just the individual acts of the students.”
“This is the most collaborative show I've been in at NECCA,” Fractured aerial performer Jenna Ciotta notes. “It is heavily developed through the creative input of every ensemble member, rather than solely the vision of our director.”
NECCA is recognized as a leader in circus arts training.
In 2017, with a move into a new custom building, the school expanded its professional training from a part-time, two-year opportunity to a full-time, three-year program.
With that shift, the school envisioned focusing on an ensemble show as part of the final year curriculum, with the goal to take the students on tour.
'We aim to support the students to be daring in their art, physically and theatrically,” Forchion says. “And we also aim to bring circus into the community of rural New England as a theatrical art form capable of involving story and concepts.
“With the new third year program, we are supporting the creativity of the students, the vision of the director, and taking the show on tour. This has been a dream here at NECCA for years and we are excited to see it finally come to fruition.”
Fractured took its inspiration from the experiences of the students and is a performance about repetition and what it sometimes takes to break free from a cycle. The performers ultimately find themselves not running in circles but spiraling out into the inspiring, beautiful unknown.
“Fractured is about the transformative power of catastrophes,” Ciotta explains.
Aerial rope performer Rachel Rees, who moved to Brattleboro from New Orleans to train at NECCA, is excited to have an audience view the culmination of her training.
“People should come see Fractured,” says Rees, “if they want to be entertained, moved, surprised, and to support the next generation of artists committed to creating dynamic, live performance.”