Circa's HUMANS 2.0 reviewed at Spoleto USA

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Magnifica Humans 2.0 -- Circa flies through Spoleto USA

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May 24, 2026

Get all the top news & discounts for South Carolina & beyond.

Sottile Theatre, Charleston, South Carolina

Presented by Spoleto Festival USA

(SPOILER ALERT – I describe the acts with details that might be better-enjoyed seen live for the first time! I’m sorry! I’m frontally disinhibited! What can I say?!)

OK, contemporary circus, first you had my curiosity.

Then you had my attention .

But now … now you have my total support and love.

Contemporary circus company, Circa , has come to Charleston, South Carolina, as part of Spoleto USA’s 50th anniversary, with their Humans 2.0. This is the next installment after their successful Humans production — although with their current creation and context, the “2.0” more ironically evokes a software upgrade than a performance sequel.

Circa is one of just a handful of contemporary circus troupes trailblazing a completely new artform – performance or otherwise – across planet Earth. As with many new human cultural inventions, it is the result of a “conceptual blend,” as noted by art and cognitive philosopher, Mark Turner . In this case, the blend is the traditional circus “act” and circus apparatuses, blended into other areas of the performing arts, whether theater, dance, performance art, and/or opera.

Circa hails from Australia, and for whatever reason, that is one of just a few (call it “the other hand-ful”) regions that have nurtured this movement into global fruition for all of us. Those regions, over the past several decades, include France, Quebec, the West Coast of the United States, a smattering from Great Britain, and a surprisingly large contingent from Australia. Now, I could make jokes about why French culture supports this, but I won’t, cuz I dig French culture. And I could make jokes about those West Coast hippies, but I won’t. Poor hippies. But for Australia — why Australia? I’m going to go with: 1) they seem to have a disproportionate amount of strong and sexy bodies down there (no fair!); and 2) I like to imagine that, after experiencing Humans 2.0 , that perhaps their culture was influenced by the Luddites who were shipped to Australia-as-penal-colony, forging a culture of artisans that fought against the ugliness and inequality produced by machines and instead for the beauty and community produced by … HUMANS.

I had the good fortune and privilege to experience Circa twice in two days – their lovely opera-circus fusion of Dido and Aeneas , which I reviewed for the Charleston Post and Courier , and now their dance-circus fusion of Humans 2.0 , both at the Sottile Theatre in Charleston (I only wish I hadn’t gotten sick and had to miss their Duck Pond , for which I had tickets in Seattle earlier this year, or else I could’ve covered the trifecta! lol….)

Humans 2.0 starts — attacca subito! — immediately after the perfunctory “turn off your cell phones” pre-announcement (perhaps I was startled because I expected to then hear a “land-acknowledgement,” naïve me). And we see – what? The whole 10-person ensemble of performers are doing … what? … warm-ups? Aren’t these just … oh, wait, no … these aren’t just simple push-ups. These are perfect one-armed push-ups, with no cheating, and countless reps without tiring, all to groovy music. Thus, what will become a most beautiful display of physical theater in skill and artistry starts with the simplest-appearing of physical exercises – and yet already the hulkiest of physical trainers must be pretty darn impressed.

The simplicity very quickly evolves into more interesting movements, as they begin to leap or roll over one another. As imperceptivity as the changing music in a phasing piece by Steve Reich, the ensemble has soon evolved into a cohesive “performance,” with their various circus skills so perfectly integrated with one another and within an overall staging, which itself starts to take an increasingly symbolic meaning, that one realizes that … hey, wait a minute…. What is this? One is going to have to use that word. That “dance” word. “Choreography.” I mean, are these circus-like acrobatics? Yes. But is it feeling, without a doubt, much more like a modern dance production? Absolutely yes. Welcome to just one of the myriad ways contemporary circus artists are inventing a brand new artform right under our collective zeitgeist noses. (Man, it must be thrilling to be them, lucky bastards. And here I was, jealous of our grunge rockers in Seattle in the early ‘90s, merely creating a new rock scene. Ha! Chopped liver, on a human-history-cultural-scale! Lol.)

The opening act finally evolves with the whole ensemble in a line, circling around one member as the “hub” at center stage, as if they were all a spoke of a wheel, or a hand on a clock, the sort of motif that returns again and again – movements that seem a contrast to our main theme for the performance, of “humanity.” This was something mechanical, something disturbingly Koyaanisqatsi-ish.

After this group ensemble, a smaller set piece, with fewer performers, to give others breaks in between. Different scenes in our show had different suggested themes, or stories, about Homo sapiens sapiens. There was a “sexy” story, that was mainly between a man and a woman, with the woman making very coy gestures to the man throughout, as they … you know … leaped onto — or away from — each other, and threw each other around and up in the air in mind-boggling fashions (I guess, metaphorically, what we all do in our relationships?).

One of our “stories” was about “dance” itself, in a humorous manner. Silly twangs and beats from the soundtrack, while performers accentuated their hips to the beats to let us know, “this one is about humans being groovy, yo.” Here, and a few times elsewhere, there were some “robotic” movements — to possibly comment on the robotics that are fast-approaching, on the horizon, running at us, trying to catch up with their A.I. software brains who are a bit ahead of them and almost on top of us!? … Or, maybe it was just fun and groovy robot dancing? (Or both, with irony? – “The humans are dead!” )

There is a lot of “hand-to-hand” work/skill throughout, where a “base” performer holds another performer up often just with their palms. There are also wonderful ariel sets, one featuring two ropes dangling down, that climaxes with the artist having each foot grabbing each rope, then stretching apart, until she holds herself up completely with her ballerina “splits.” Another had a long single rope, that climaxes with a 30-foot high “death-defying” spinning free-fall back down safely to the floor. (Never fails to elicit gasps.)

But for the most part, these acts use little in the way of “circus apparatus”. No pole. And no juggling, either. And goodness help me, no gaudy, cheesy “wheel of death.” (Lol.) This was primarily a focus on performers, and their bodies, thus, creative and audacious acrobatics were center stage for most of the performance. They might not have a cannon, but guess what? When five strong performers hurl one small performer across the stage with all their might – it sure looked like she was fired out of a friggin’ cannon!

It is impossible not to appreciate what must go into training a body to perform these skills, skills that take years to master. But somehow, Humans 2.0 goes even further. They have several moments where even in the still parts — where a performer does NOT move at all – one is still in awe. Take this performer here, stiff as a board and being twirled around. To stay stiff despite those momentums and accelerations and decelerations must take just as much work adjusting various muscles to stay so rigid as one would need flopping around. Or maybe more? In another beautifully creative “still” moment, one performer is held up in the air as if on the ground on all fours, with each limb on four different performers’ base-heads. Two of the base-performers then leave, yet she stays completely still, despite all of her downward force now applied to just the other two, as opposed to all four. Two limbs needing twice the strength suddenly, the other two needing to relax completely. Yet without moving at all, and all while up in the air. Then the other two come back, the other two leave, and still … still. And so on. The performer perfectly motionless throughout. I never thought I could be so impressed with an acrobat who appeared to be doing … “nothing.”

Flying into the air and being caught was a beautiful motif through the performance. Sometimes, it is even done with an ensemble-member leaping or falling backwards, blindly, like one of those exercises at corporate retreats (except far more dangerous), trusting and knowing that they would be caught, and safe. (Although – twice they pulled out the ol’ “gimme 5, up high, down low, too slow,” trick, as a performer would fly up into the arms of another and be caught, once, twice — and then dropped the last time for comedic effect. But also symbolic, no doubt. Sometimes things go wrong with humans. Sometimes people, sadly, cannot be trusted…?)

A “squishy-squeamish stunt” seems another common motif for the group. Where one person will lay prone, and another will walk right onto their back. Then they up the stakes — they’ll be supine and the other will walk directly on their belly. Eesh. (Obviously needs very strong abs/”core” strength.) It gets all the creepier when a larger person steps squarely on a smaller person’s abdomen, and especially when a man walks on a woman, with how we’ve all been gender-encultured, and with all of the violence against women in the world. (I think only Kathleen Hanna is expected to “ walk all over ” men.) Then the climax – a smaller man (who actually looks like Elijah Wood !) leapfrogs from one stomach to another across the stage, with the “lily pad” performers getting farther and farther apart, and thus the jumps get higher, landing with more kinetic energy, and thus needing more equal and opposite force to stop him (so their guts won’t spill out everywhere! Geesh!) (Now we all see why it would be so horrible to be killed from “pressing,” Just one of the gloriously imaginative ways we “humans” used to execute one another….)

There were only a few “flubs.” (When you take hundreds of risks a night, a few inevitably won’t “land” – literally.) Once, the top person of a three-person-high totem pole – one standing on the shoulders of another, who was standing on the shoulders of a big base performer — was going to somehow do a 360-degree turn, alternating the feet on the shoulders, causing a lot of Jenga-game-type wobbling of the whole tower. Alas, she did not quite make it — and fell! — from at least 12-feet up in the air, somewhat out of control. But we suddenly understood why other performers had been surrounding the tower — for this very possibility — and caught her effortlessly. Actually, surprisingly gracefully. And the beautiful thing about that – it was met with one of the biggest bits of applause for the whole show. Recognized as a “successful failure,” like an Apollo 13 mission, or something. Applauding safety. For everyone caring for each other, even when things go wrong. (Goodness help me, if I’m ever in an audience that boos something like that because it was a “failure,” I think I’d totally lose my shit.) For me, this was an acrobatic dramatization/metaphor for humanity’s newest branch of Ethics – Carol Gilligan’s “Care Ethics.” We – human beings — have all been helpless in our infancy. And we will all become helpless, at some point, either with disability or aging. Part o

_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/south-carolina/article/Review-Circas-HUMANS-20-Presented-By-Spoleto-USA-20260528)._