Bouncing back

Vacuum cleaner nipple suction, nude roller-skating, and anal magic tricks make Acrobat’s Smaller Poorer Cheaper not quite the family-friendly performance of most circus troupes.

Three years after the rebel ensemble disbanded, Simon Yates, Jo Lancaster and Mozes have returned with three solo acts touching on motherhood, HIV and launching into the unknown.

Instead of taking the narrative story and characters approach, we decided to all draw on stuff that had happened to us over the years as the meat of our pieces, Mozes says.

Between aerial trapeze and rope acts, Mozes balances comedic routines with provocative references to blood and being positive, careful to avoid therapy on stage.

I just wanted to make a piece about me, without making a -˜poor me’ story, without having a soapbox element to it. Because HIV and performance are both such huge parts of my life, merging them together seemed like the natural thing to do, he says.

Mozes introduces his status during a magic act, progressively removing his clothing until pulling what appears to be a blood-soaked handkerchief from his rear.

The -˜blood up my cocking arse’ scene is a pretty intense moment, it’s like a panic attack, like being told you’re positive.

After his own seroconversion, Mozes felt the need to put on a happy front, so he follows up the magic trick with nude roller disco. More confronting is his final rope scene in which he climbs, twists and tumbles as blood pours over him.

Mozes says Acrobat started with the intention of performing confronting pieces, so they wouldn’t have to work in the confines of what somebody else felt was suitable, having all previously worked with more commercial troupes.

We can be a bit more risqu?we can break down the aesthetic, strip back the theatrical magic, so you see all the workings of the rigging. Now that we’re back together, we’ve got less money, we’ve tried to make the production values look a lot cheaper than it used to, so it becomes a more raw performance.

Smaller Poorer Cheaper is showing from 28 March to 1 April at Performance Space, CarriageWorks. Bookings at moshtix.com.au or 9209 4614.