Subcase

Wake

Ockham's Razor

« Rummaging in the

cramped chilly closet of February, there are scarce few circus productions to be found. Nonetheless! A couple items demand attention:

First, foremost, Subcase. Technically a professional event rather than a festival (but working out cheaper than a festival with tickets around £50), it's a showcase of Nordic circus with eight full-length ready-to-tour performances and an equal number of works-in-progress. Among the programme look out for Marie-Louise Masreliez's Higher, a piece based on interviews conducted with its three aerial performers; an early showing of Huhu, the new work by Ilmatila (Ilona Jäntti and Tuula Jeker) playing with aerial and animation; and Mi Otro Yo, a piece directed by the intriguingly eclectic Rudi Skotheim Jensen. If you're really curious and sufficiently determined there's an account of last year's Subcase somewhere in this digressive monologue.

Back here in the UK, currently on an extensive tour, Acrojou's Wake is at last a finished show. The piece was originally shortlisted for the Jeunes Talents Cirque Europe scheme back in 2009, and has been seen here and there in the time since as a work-in-progress showing – but has likely undergone a radical overhaul. It's about death, though, definitely the apposite subject for this bleakest of months, and though this is their first full-length show the company have earned their stripes with outdoor piece The Wheel House, a dusty conflation of Mad Max and When the Wind Blows played out within the confines of a German wheel.

Finally, actually in March, but so near the beginning of March that you might as well consider it now, Ockham's Razor will be at Artsdepot for one night with their Arc / Every Action... / Memento Mori trilogy. This is sort of how it goes now, the piece warping in for a single night at irregular intervals, but catch it if you can – it's still an intelligent and detailed exploration of the possibilities of three pieces of custom aerial equipment. »