Sziget Festival 2025 Interview: YUCK CIRCUS, Australia

Yuck Circus is about to have their sixth birthday and they have got five touring works these days. The show that they are bringing over to Sziget Festival this summer is their original work. The one that got really popular really quickly and they feel super lucky to tour that globally. On top of 5 performances they also can produce other people and they create shows for youth circus schools as well.

What is your daily routine like before a performance?
Georgia Deguara, director of Yuck Circus: I would like to say it's glamorous, but usually we are smashing a feed and we do diligence of warming up and training together. Yeah the reality is that we eat a big bowl of noodles or get an ice cream and then go and check some flips on stage.

How much do you train in a week?
GD: It varies, some circus companies train full-time and they all live in the same place, but with this company we all live in different corners of Australia. My closest classmate is a three hour flight away, some of them six hour flight, so we don't often train together, but when we're on tour, we are working on our acro skills, solo skills and all that being a rounded acrobat.

How long does it take to put together a production?
GD: I would love to say we have the funding to do months at a time but the reality is usually it is only like a week. I write the show and that takes a long time before we get together. The most recent show we're performing is early 2000 theme, so it's finding music like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, it's deciding how I want the show to work, how all fits together, it's like talking to the cast about what they want to perform, as well, and then it's kind of matchmaking, we meet together usually sometimes two weeks but usually like a week before, or maybe it's the same time as a festival, so we're performing a different show and training a new one at the same time. That's just because we're not a funded company, we are an independent company, so unfortunately we don't have the money to do long developments unless I apply for grants.

Who comes up with the choreography, where does the inspiration come from?
GD: For the show that we're bringing over to you guys it came from a place of feeling like in the industry we aren't really being represented. We would look around and often the role was like the stereotype of a female acrobat who has to be small and have a sparkly costume and be thrown around by the big boy bases. It was all you have to look like should be really sexy and like oooh she's a sexy girl doing trapeze and I kind of looked at that and said no that's not for me. It's one part in the original shows, talking about what's like to grow up as a woman in the art sector or also in Australia. And then other gender base concepts came from the binge drinking, you know those kind of expectations of what a body can and can't do. I think it's really important to know that though the topic is serious, the way that it's presented is not. It's comedy and circus based, everything is taking a piss, everything is funny. And we hope that people come and have a great time watching the show.

How do you choose your costumes and equipment, where do you get them from?
GD: Our base costume is a crop top in Grundy style or like Bridget Jones undies. Circus equipment is pretty specialized, it's hard to get good circus equipment in Australia, a lot of these are imported from Europe actually. Most of our props and costumes and some of our equipment are handmades by me, so I am not only running the company and running around on stage, but I'm also painting and making and doing everything by scratch.

How excited are you when friends or family are in the audience?
GD: It is pretty good, it's pretty great, because I live so far away from most places that we perform. It's very rare that I get to present my work to my friends or family. So it's always really exciting, when we bring the show to my hometown, it's pretty like we all fill the entire venue and it's a big celebration it's very great. I think just generally having friends and family see what you do and they celebrate what you're doing on stage, we also celebrate like as an audience and see everyone have a good time.

What was the biggest mistake during a performance?
GD: Look, we've made mistakes in a sense of like I've forgotten to bring that prop on, or maybe I got changed into a costume too early, but I think when you're comfortable with the show and with each other, there aren't big accidents, there are no big mistakes. I would say it wasn't a mistake, but a really exciting thing is happened recently. We did a show outdoor and halfway through it just started piercing down raining. And I stopped the show and I asked the audience who were also in the rain, hey it's like obviously raining, do you want us to stop, or you all with us and should we keep going on, and it was like we are with you, so you're excited to be involved in something, that was so unique, like when you gonna see a circus show in full rain. It's exciting, it's big music and we just went for it and maybe it was a mistake in the sense of like it's pretty dangerous to do that, but we changed choreography on the go, we swapped around each other to be safe. I rolled in a puddle at one point but the stage was dry, it's always a cut of those exciting things. You know make an art and live performance is so interesting.

What makes your professional life difficult?
GD: Touring is difficult I think. It looks very glamorous, a circus performer or any stand-up comedian, a musician, or a band, they just get to rock up and do these gigs, but the reality is it's a lot of hard work, a lot of building connections, building networks over years and years and years. We've been touring to the UK now for five years, and this is our first European gig. It's taken a lot of money, a lot of work to make it happen. Also the realities of touring, like often you're doing big seasons away from home, you know, how do you cook food, how do you do washing? That kind of stuff comes into play, and long haul flights, no thank you. Flying to Australia sucks, it's worth it, but it sucks, I won't do it more than once a year.

What is the most attractive thing about your professional life?
GD: I guess the other side of that coin is it's glamorous in a way, like you not only share something you are really passionate about, and do a physical job, but you really can't complain, when your entire job is performing incredible festivals and incredible venues, and inspiring communities like in other cases you can't, I'd rather do that any day than an office job or something similar.

How do you get along with each other?
GD: Too well. It's like a big sleepover club. The girls love seeing each other, because we're not a full-time company. Same like some of the circus companies, there are some periods throughout the year, that we won't see each other for a month, or so, and meaning back together is always like a reunion, it's really exciting. I strive with this company to have fun on stage, and have fun performing and I try eliminate any sort of pressure or stress, so keeping a healthy stage makes a healthy cast.

Is the team permanent, or do members change, leave, arrive?
GD: I have a cast of five including myself, but members do change. They might wanna stop touring, because they wanna settle down, or maybe they've got an exciting opportunity somewhere else for a certain block, but I do tend to work with the same crew of people, so the show stay true to themselves, but also just that it's easier as an independent company not to be retraining people all the time.

What is the secret of your success, why do you think the audience is interested in what you do?
GD: If there's a secret, I think just don't take yourself too seriously, and that is exciting for people. They want to see real women on stage having fun, being strong, I mean that's so interesting to watch, but also to see it and believe it, like being an inspiration for young women, for partners of women, for parents of women, it's about building a community. Plus we're just really cool 😃 Awesome.

https://szigetfestival.com/hu/program#/artist/2028433-YUCKCircus
https://yuckcircus.com/
https://www.facebook.com/YUCKcircus/
https://www.instagram.com/YUCK_circus/

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