Festival showcases twin city circus school

Yorav Shemesh was barely a teenager when he decided he'd join the circus.

Growing up around the bustling performer community in Mullumbimby in northern NSW, 13-year-old Yorav and his 11-year-old brother Tal became obsessed by a juggling performance at a local festival in 2017.

"Since then I did become pretty obsessed with it, like, this is what I wanted to do in my life," Yorav says.

The brothers kept training in juggling, magic and performance and two years later, auditioned for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Australia's only full-time youth circus school.

The boys were accepted and moved south with their mother and sister to the cooler climes of the Victorian-NSW border and the twin cities of Albury Wodonga.

Today, they learn acrobatics, aerial skills, manipulation and juggling from their heroes.

"Our two favourite acts that inspired us the most (in 2017) are now our coaches," Tal says.

"Pretty awesome."

The brothers are performing at this year's Borderville festival in Albury Wodonga, a two-week series of council-supported street performances showcasing Flying Fruit Fly students' skills and culminating in the school's graduate show on December 17.

Around 3500 people attended opening events around the twin cities on Saturday.

The Flying Fruit Fly Circus started in 1979 after a local performing group staged a Christmas circus event with students.

"They rounded up a number of kids from the local schools and said, 'Let's make a circus'," circus veteran and Fruit Fly artistic director Anni Daley says.

The event - named when quarantine laws required interstate travellers to dump their fruit at the border and mirrored the students "flying" between the twin cities - was an extraordinary success and, after a repeat performance the following year, became a school.

"What was once a side project at the Murray River Performing Group became its own entity, the Flying Fruit Fly Circus," Ms Daley says.

The school now provides a full-time circus training program alongside the academic curriculum for around 80 students aged eight to 19 years old, and is a springboard for performers around the world.

"You'll find an ex-Fruit Fly anywhere in the industry; Cirque du Soleil, Circus Oz, Circa, they're all over them," Ms Daley says.

"Everybody in circus knows about the Fruit Flies."

Yorav and Tal say the training has helped them develop life skills, confidence and risk management and a social scene where trust comes first.

"It's really rare to I think have a place where everyone really wants to be there and we all have one goal, it's really awesome, it's like a community," Yorav says.

"And we really learn to work as a team and support and respect each other," Tal adds.

The school, which runs its academic campus from Victorian Wodonga and its training centre in NSW's Albury, also has a less intensive recreational program for people who would rather dip their toes than leap into the full-time program. 

"It is a bit of a commitment to join the the 'Fruities' so it's not for everyone," Yorav says.

Art director Ms Daley said the school, whether full-time or through its recreational classes, provided an alternative for kids who weren't engaged in regular academia or competitive sports.

"I think that schools are crying out for an alternative to competitive sports ... because of you know, injury concussion protocols and because of the nature of competition. 

"I think that circus should be it."

As to any potential risks involved, Ms Daley said kids needed to learn how to take risks safely.

"Our kids are safe, but they're doing things parents would be horrified if their own kids were doing them in the back garden," she says.

"We're sort of in the business of avoiding accidents regularly."

Asked if any of the stunts scared Yorav and Tal, the brothers said they always had a degree of nervousness when performing, but not fear.

"We always have to make sure we feel safe before, I mean, you always get nervous before performing," Tal says, before his brother chimes in.

"You're always going to get nervous and the thing that we learn while we're here is that you do have to push yourself out of your comfort zone, to get better, and to grow," Yorav says.

"During training and before performances, sometimes it feels like it's going to be be scary, but we know that we're safe and we know that everyone's looking out for us."