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Legs On The Wall new article content ... Legs On The Wall is an Australian physical theatre company based in Sydney.

Formed in 1984, Legs On The Wall's performances combine acrobatics with narrative theatre, circus skills and technology. The company creates aerial outdoor shows and theatre productions, performing within Australia and internationally.

Legs On The Wall received the 1994 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for a group. The production that this award was recognising in particular was All of Me. This production was the culmination of over ten years of experimenting with narrative in physical theatre. The group approached theatre as a heightened reality, creating visceral theatre using physical skills instead of verbal language. The script for this work is published in "Performing the unNameable".

Legs on the Wall production On the Case was named Best Visual or Physical Theatre Production at the 2006 Helpmann Awards.

History Legs on the Wall 's beginnings trace back to 'Beta House' in Newtown, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, Australia.

The two adjacent warehouses, Alpha and Beta House were occupied by artists in the early 1980s. Kerry Dwyer, a director and actor from Melbourne, and Tim Coldwell from Circus Oz turned a floor of Beta House into a circus/physical theatre space. They invited busking duo Thor Blomfield and Brian Keogh and French busker Oliver Lejus to train with them leading to a rapidly expanding network of other physical performers turning up daily to work out and rehearse for shows. Notable performers from this period are Judy Pascoe, Alan Clarke, Stephen Burton and Kerry Casey. Everyone was young and keen, attending two main acrobatic classes. One was run by George Sparks who taught acrobatics at the Ensemble Theatre but also held his own public classes. The other was run by Rudi and Mary (reference to come). Another person of significance at the time was Clete Ball a member of the Bel Caron Trio. Clete taught the importance and value of how performers interact with one another on stage.

Prior to 'Legs on the Wall' Thor, Brian and Oliver started 'Butchered Heart Players'. It was on a busking trip to Melbourne, with actor/performer Sylvio Ofria that they speculated about creating shows for theatre spaces. They asked Michele Conyngham, a very gifted pianist, to join them. Max Thrower came in as the writer and then they conned the very talented Kerry Dwyer to direct them. They had no idea about lighting design though, so Belinda Haig came to the rescue.

In 1983 the group created the show Bruce Cuts Off His Hand premiering at the Newcastle Workers Club (Newcastle Panthers) before going on to seasons in Sydney and Adelaide. The show was based on BHP's massive layoffs in both Newcastle and Wollongong that were occurring at the time, with the mining giant's acronym, BHP, inspiring the name 'Butchered Heart Players'. Essentially a cabaret/farce Bruce Cuts Off His Hand opened with the performers sacking the audience and trying to get them to leave the theatre. A primary influence was Britain's first experimental theatre company The People Show. Although Bruce Cuts Off His Hand had a shaky start, in January 1984 the show was positively reviewed by Richard Glover leading to success in Sydney and ultimately great acclaim at the 1984 Adelaide Fringe Festival. Importantly, the seeds of a belief that a narrative structure could be created through circus skills had been sown.

Around the same period, a training project with the Chinese Nanching Acrobats, 'The Great Leap Forward', began with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury, NSW. The Beta House group adapted the basic training methods of this project. This started with an intense leg stretch involving everyone placing their legs on the window ledge to stretch in various positions for a count of 32 (in Chinese). The phrase "'meeting for legs on the wall' at 8am...okay...let's make that 9am" became a well-established catch-cry for everyone.

In mid 1995 Brian Keogh met Kristin Robson in a universally, critically panned, stage production, Terror at Terror Palms. Brian was a performer, cast because he could enter stage left, flying, with his back on fire, and Kristin the stage manager, (harbouring a not so secret desire to run away with the circus), was the one that set Brian's back alight. Although the show closed early due to literally no 'bums on seats' Brian kept his promise and taught Kristin to juggle clubs (not balls) and Kristin kept her promise to see Brian and Thor's busking show. This show included hundreds of red ping-pong balls dropping, endlessly, uncontrollably and magically from Thor and Brian's clothing; a disco duo dance with Thor and Brian connected by solid, interlinked steel rings which unexpectedly and unnaturally kept coming apart requiring some seriously arrhythmic boogie woogie to re-connect; and for the finale a lanky, bone thin Thor, on his tall unicycle somehow hoisting rock-solid Brian onto this shoulders and delivering him to a slack rope, rigged 6 feet above the ground, which Brian skillfully, but not so daintily, walked while juggling clubs on fire. Kristin was hooked...poor Kristin.

And so the hard work began. Kristin was sworn into the magicians secret society promising never to divulge how a magic trick works before, under Brian's tyrannical tuition, she learnt a few herself. She attended George Sparks' acrobatic classes and juggled and juggled and juggled some more, which Brian never considered enough. When he thought she'd cope, Brian took Kristin busking before introducing her into the Hijack Club, a cabaret venue in South Newtown, Sydney, sponsored by a grant from the Theatre Board of the Australia Council, which Brian,Thor and Oliver Lejus had secured. Kristin and Sarah (name to follow), an aspiring performer hailing from Hull in the UK, joined the group and together they held audiences hostage for a series of Friday evening cabaret shows, demanding a hefty $6 cover charge, albeit there were $4 concession tickets available.

These shows became the forerunner to Bruce Cuts His Hand Off...Again which the group performed at the 1985 Adelaide Fringe Festival to packed houses and critical acclaim. In keeping with creating narrative theatre through magic and circus skills Bruce Cuts His Hand Off...Again was absurdist, physical theatre turning mundane domestic life on its head. Brian and Kristin, as a stage couple, fought their personal differences in a series of high energy acrobatic throws and tumbles. Brian read the daily news from a paper that spontaneously combusted. Kristin served tea from a floating teapot with milk expertly shot from her breast. In the final battle, Kristin skewered Brian, trapped in a box, with 12 swords whilst reciting Wordsworth's I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. Brian's blood drenched Kristin in red. He emerged however, juggling clubs on fire. Kristin lights up her own and with the dexterity worthy of the most harmoniously married couples, they spectacularly passed the burning clubs to one another. A love never burned so bright.

Meanwhile Olivier and Sarah transformed themselves into an old and crotchety couple. Demented, bickering, profanely domestic. Their clowning was a frightening forbearing of old age and coupledom at its worst...

High on the success of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brian and Kristin decided to create an ensemble that would seriously develop the concept of physical, narrative theatre. They approached Brigid Kitchin, who had started Urban Myth Theatre Company in Adelaide. Once on board Brigid suggested Matthew Lafferty, who had worked with the renowned Dutch company KISS (reference to be inserted).

Legs On The Wall was born. The name was agreed on and an office, training space was established in the old army mess hall at the Addison Road Community Centre. The combination of experience, energy and tenacity as well as a healthy fearlessness to ask for advice from the 'old school' theatre/circus experts including director Don Mamouney, actress Jai McHenry and numerous Circus Oz performers the concept grew and work/gigs evolved.

The first 'Legs' show was based around the failure of the group to be competent jugglers and an absurd humour which rewarded punishment with failure.For example, every juggling 'drop' drew an action determined by the spin of a chocolate wheel. The options were either spectacular acrobatic feats or complete nonsense such as inflating a rubber glove stuck over the top of your head, mouth and nose until it exploded. The randomness kept audiences perpetually engaged and the outcome was live, unknown and completely spontaneous.

Legs on the Wall's profile grew when being paid to perform at the Sydney Festival, January 1986 at Luna Park. During this time, 'Legs' also performed at a private party which notorious cultural advocate (among other many other things) Leo Schofield attended. In a short paragraph, in his regular column for the The Sydney Morning Herald Schofield endorsed 'Legs' as "one of the most engaging acts I've seen for a long time and I recommend it unreservedly." He then went so far as to provide the contact number for 'Legs'. This was a major turning point. 'Legs' became trendy as well as funny.

However with a serious determination, 'Legs' secured Department of Education accreditation to perform in schools and universities again significantly broadening their audience base and solidifying 'Legs' as a viable company - not in it for the short term.

In April 1986 'Legs' were hired by Gil Weaver and his Teenage Roadshow to tour the outback of NSW, QLD and Northern Territority with the amazing Azmen. The Azmen (named after the lead singer) were a mostly Malaysian born rock n roll covers band. They had been touring with The Teenage Roadshow for some years already and when arriving to remote communities the kids would line the dusty red roads, cheering as if Michael Jackson had turned up. 'Legs' were employed to do the half time show. It was a fantastic trip through outback NSW and Queensland to the gulf country (Karumba, Normanton and The Purple Pub), then across to Darwin and on to Kununurra and Halls Creek. This tour was a camp out, swagging tour, with the Azmen catching fish at the waterholes and creating amazing curries over the campfire. Audiences were as diverse as old men asleep schooners of beer, entire remote aboriginal communities and their dogs, whom Gil had respectfully sought permission to enter their country, Darwin jail and Lindy Chamberlain and hip, theatre goers at the Darwin Festival.

The first stage show under the name 'Legs on the Wall' was called Quacks in the Ceiling with Mick and Jim Conway's band The Conway Brothers. The first season was at the Lennox Theatre at Parramatta Riverside from Monday 1 August to Saturday 13 August, 1988.

George Washingmachine who was the violinist in the band was married to Kristin and the idea to combine forces germinated between the groups. Quacks in the Ceiling was based around a medicine show extolling the benefits of elixir that was commonly available (hence the 'con').  The product was called 'Life', and at this stage the group felt that the most ridiculous thing you could sell was water.  Water was freely available to everyone...so selling it seemed like the most stupid concept.  Obviously, there was an investment opportunity that was severely underestimated.     

The central illusion was a great water escape. By now Kristin was out of action with her first child and Thor had re-entered the group. In Quacks in the Ceiling Thor was wrapped in chains then dumped upside down in a large glass water tank. After many many minutes of submersion, when death by drowning seemed to be the only possible outcome, Thor emerged unchained and victorious...extolling the life giving properties of water.

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