Stretching their wings

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Flying Fruit Fly Circus 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and Oct. 19; 2 and 8 p.m. Oct. 20; and 2 and 7 p.m. Oct. 21 Hawai'i Theatre $25 for Wednesday's show, a benefit for The Susan G. Komen Hawaii Race for the Cure $30-$45 general, $15-$30 children, students, seniors on all other evenings 528-0506

The twin cities of Albury-Wodonga, to be exact.

Three hours out of Melbourne in the south and six hours out of Sydney up north, Albury-Wodonga and its rural population of 93,000 are known for several things.

The Hume Dam, which holds back more water than the entirety of Sydney Harbor and is a water sports enthusiast's nirvana. The Rutherglen wine region, which contains some of the oldest, most productive vineyards in Australia. The Inverness Park Cashmere Farm, which claims to use the wool of four to six of the buggers to create a single cashmere jumper. And last, but not least, The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, one of the continent's most lauded youth performing arts troupes as well as Albury-Wodonga's very own hometown internationally known circus.

More like the most exuberant and acrobatic high school production of "Grease" you've seen in your life than the oft times dark and dour Cirque du Soleil they are often compared to, the Fruit Flys are a collection of Albury-Wodonga school kids, ages 8 to 18, who when not in private classes for math, history and English, spend several weeks of the year touring the world as circus performers.

Over the last two decades, the troupe has taken more than 100 of its original circus stage productions to locales as far flung as New York, Britain, Canada and Fiji. It even participated in the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Summer Games in Sydney.

"We were part of the Tin Symphony," said three-year Fruit Fly artistic director Kim Walker, via telephone from Albury-Wodonga. "You remember all those people climbing those large poles and then jumping from pole to pole? That was us."

A troupe of 19 Fruit Flys — there are actually more than 90 matriculating in the three Rs and stuff like handstand chair balancing at the Acrobatic Arts Community School in Albury-Wodonga, otherwise known as the Flying Fruit Fly School — will make their first performance foray to Honolulu next week to present "The Gift," a fast and furious mix of drama, dance, music and more trapeze swinging, high-wire walking and serious-injury-defying circus hijinks than have likely ever graced the Hawai'i Theatre proscenium.

"We are not a traditional circus," said Walker. "We're much more of a theatrical circus that embodies theater principles and storytelling. The kids are all from the surrounding area."

Founded as a six-month theater and circus workshop for about 30 local children in 1979 as part of that year's International Year of the Child celebrations, the Fruit Fly program has morphed over the last two decades from a simple touring act of youthful after-school acrobats into a fully realized educational institution for the performing arts. Since 1987, the publicly financed Acrobatic Arts Community School has offered a broad-based curriculum of classes for grades 3 through 10 between instruction in dance, music, theater and, each weeknight for three hours, circus training. Teenagers in grades 11 and 12 go to an affiliated local high school but are also required to report in for evening acrobatics Monday through Friday.

More than 100 Fruit Fly hopefuls sign on for the program annually, beginning with Saturday morning basic courses in tumbling and juggling. After six months, each child is evaluated for a more intense training course, followed six months later by an invitation to audition for entrance.

"The kids who are asked into the circus school come out of those auditions," said Walker. "Because there's only a limited amount of spaces, we take in only about 10 kids a year." In addition to evaluating the progress of each child's year of basic training, school officials study each applicant's school grades, enthusiasm and ability to work comfortably within a group.

Once accepted into the school, students balance a full academic schedule with hours of circus training with Fruit Fly's staff of instructors, themselves a mix of seasoned performers from Chinese, Russian and Australian circuses. The training staff even includes a number of former Fruit Flys — required to leave the troupe after graduating from high school — who come home to teach after their own stints in circus troupes around the world.

"New students train for a varied amount of years in basic skills like tumbling and stretching," said Walker. "Only after that do they start learning the acts." Being selected for a touring troupe can take anywhere from a year to several years of training and is dependent on excellence in both the gym and the classroom.

The students' already-intense weekday evening training expands to even more grueling weekend sessions in the weeks before touring productions of large shows like "The Gift."

"'The Gift' is one of the larger of several shows we tour," said Walker. "In addition to the 19 kids actually in the show, we've got crew, parents, teachers and chaperones coming along with us to Hawai'i."

Set almost entirely in a classroom, "The Gift" begins with a student's first awkward day in a circus school much like that of the Fruit Fly. At first ignored and intimidated by his more experienced classmates who perform aerial acrobatics on their desks and in and around the classroom when their instructor's eyes are turned, the youngster eventually becomes one of the gang, his emerging talents turning more impressive and elaborate as the show progresses.

Honolulu will be getting the same version of "The Gift" that premiered to much praise in New York two years ago. Intact are all of the show's ooh- and ahh-inspiring aerial feats, including an elaborate dream sequence featuring a solo trapeze artist swinging out and over the front rows of the Hawai'i Theatre.

"We'll have the most technical rigging (aerial equipment and safety mechanics) the Hawai'i Theatre has ever seen," said Honolulu promoter Tim Bostock, who has worked for two years to bring the Fruit Flys to Hawai'i. "It was so complicated — freight-wise — to bring in a lot of their trusses, that we've had to build a lot of them here."

Front-row seats are selling fast. We think.