From the Elastique Citrique to Circus Space and beyond.... Lili Parson, a Nyon native has joined the troupe of the Royal Opera House's latest co-production- a modern version of Monteverdi's Orfeo, one of the first operas ever made. Part of the Elastique Citrique, Nyon's circus school since she was 5, training, performing and teaching there until last year, she left for London in August to join the National Center for Circus Arts (aka Circus Space) with the aim of becoming a professional circus artist. She is currently doing a year's preparation course before auditioning for several Circus schools across Europe and the world (Brussels, Stockholm, Quebec, London...). Although she has already had some pretty impressive experiences, performing this year in Denmark at the European youth circus festival, and participating in 2013 in Labo'Cirque, a three week program aiming to give a near-professional experience to promising young Swiss circus artists through the creation of a show, the Orfeo performance is of another scale. Produced by the Royal Opera and the Roundhouse, this daring new version of Orfeo uses an English translation of the original text, is performed on the circular stage of the Roundhouse and features a collaboration with the East London Dance Company. Lili is one of 14 young artists from dance or circus backgrounds chosen by the Company to support the singers throughout the play in a series of acro-dance pieces, giving the Opera a grounded and embodied bonus. Although Lili's main discipline is the Cyr Wheel- a huge ring in which she turns and performs acrobatics (you can see her in action here) she is a multi-talented artist and has been taking dancing and theatre classes as part of her year at Circus Space. She auditioned alongside some 30 people and was chosen to perform in this great experience! The rehearsals- a whole day a week since the end of October, and some more intense work over the Christmas holidays- were added to her already full schedule of training and getting ready for the Circus auditions at the end of the year, a pretty spectacular achievement! Orfeo started on the 13th of January, to appraising critics acclaiming the freshness and directness of the production. The Royal Opera has decided to offer a free live streaming of Wednesdays the 21st's performance, on its website. The Opera will begin at 20:30 Swiss time, at this location. You can read a review of the Opera here. You can catch a glimpse of Lili in this sneak-peak video.
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