Surge
The Rechabite
Friday, August 22 2025
Billed as a showcase for Perth’s emerging circus talent, Surge was a wonderful and spellbinding vision of upcoming artists likely to become festival favourites in the fairly near future. Now into its third year, presented by local Fringe multi-award winners Kinetica Circus, Surge continued to bridge the oftentimes wide gap between the training room and professional performance.
Tonight’s host was Kinetica’s very own Boy from Ballajura, Karl Kayoss. Across Boorloo’s entertainment scenes so extensively that the phrase “triple threat” doesn’t even touch the side, Kayoss deployed an acerbic wit, completely owned the stage, yet at the same time easily and graciously shared the spotlight with all the performers he introduced. The respect and care Kayoss demonstrated for his fellow artists was a delight to observe.
From silks to trapeze, straps to pole, and more, multiple circus disciplines were on display on the night. Every act was a self-contained exercise in storytelling, all knitted together across the course of the evening to reveal a glorious patchwork whole. With a visceral sense of joy, the performers rotated, contorted, twisted, and fell with purpose. The sold-out, capacity audience hung on every drop and every tumble and adored each artist in turn.
All transitions between acts flowed smoothly, the lighting was fantastic, and the musical selections were deliciously varied. These ranged from a sultry cover of Wicked Game for hand balancer Tahli to what could easily pass for a child’s version of jazz with the double trapeze clownery of Tara and Yulia, even through to Bullet For My Valentine for Grace, her aerial hammock, and all the scene kids in attendance.
Special mention must absolutely be made for Teddy and their performance on the flying pole. Staged as a tribute to the Stonewall Riot of 1969, Teddy rolled up their sleeves to a thunderous, stirring speech on why the world still needs Pride, given by British Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant only a few weeks ago. This transitioned to Naomi Scott’s Speechless, a magnificent choice for the material, and led to Teddy unfurling rainbow flags from atop their pole. In that heartfelt moment, the audience could see directly into both the artist’s vulnerabilities and strengths. It was a powerful message, stunningly imagined, spectacularly brought to fruition, and received with sustained applause.
In the aching afterglow of the piece, Kayoss passionately stated it was a scary world for many people currently. We were all living through a time where certain communities were being erased and deliberately forgotten, and, although it is worse overseas, Perth cannot be complacent; the same cultural shifts were happening here.
Despite the jagged reality of Teddy’s piece, or perhaps in direct contrast to it, another message easily taken from Surge was that beauty and art still survive in the world. With every artist bringing their own distinct vision to the stage, the audience’s cup was full to overflowing—indeed, at times one could have wished to pause a touch longer, to distil and sit in the previous act before the next began.
As both mentors and the proudest stage parents to their charges, Kayoss and Kinetica producer Sarah Ritchie displayed contrasting emotions as the show progressed, one almost in tears with happiness, the other feigning no emotion at all.
Almost all of tonight’s performers could walk into any other local production tomorrow; the term “emerging talent” is in most cases a glaring misnomer. These artists were all but fully formed already, with Surge merely the conduit to the big stage and an audience clamouring for more.
This evening was a delightful window to the future of local circus—less a hard push into the limelight and far more a collaborative effort, hand in hand, between experienced and new. Many, if not indeed all, of the ensemble tonight surely will be fixtures of Fringe, confident and at ease, over the next half decade.