GET TO KNOW | Circa's Yaron Lifschitz
Circa is one of the world’s great performing arts companies. Since 2004, they have called Brisbane, Australia, home while touring the world, captivating audiences in over 45 countries and reaching more than two million people. Everything they do is fuelled by their core values: quality, audacity, humanity.
Under the visionary leadership of Yaron Lifschitz, and in collaboration with their extraordinary ensemble of circus artists, they craft a diverse array of productions that constitute “a revolution in the spectacle of circus” (Les Echos). They are relentless in the way they push boundaries, blending movement, dance, theatre and circus and join Norfolk & Norwich Festival this May with Wolf. For Director Yaron Lifschitz, the wolf is a symbol of our untameable selves: liberating, anarchic and savage.
10 January 2026
I’m Yaron Lifschitz, Artistic Director and CEO of Circa. We’re a contemporary circus company based in Brisbane, Australia – probably the country’s most internationally toured circus. We make work that’s physically virtuosic but also emotionally and intellectually ambitious. Circus that moves the world.
What was your first creative love?
Poetry. It’s still at the heart of everything I do.
How did you find your way into circus?
I trained as a theatre director and, in a sense, failed at it. I loved the experience of theatre – the energy, the electricity of a room – but I found plays boring. I was looking for something that made theatre as exciting as it felt it should be. Circus was the answer.
What drives you to want to create?
Yeats said that out of our quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of our quarrel with ourselves, poetry. I have very little sense of where my creativity comes from. But I’m glad it’s there, and I’m terrified when it’s not.
” It used to be animals, clowns and big tops. Now it’s that circus is a sub-branch of dance or storytelling ”
What have you had to unlearn on your journey as a company so far?
That there are simple answers. We need to constantly reinvent, challenge, and provoke ourselves. We are our own disruption.
What was the process of creating Wolf like?
Joyous. A talented group of acrobats got in a room with me and we explored fearlessly. We committed to doing nothing we already knew how to do. As the show emerged, so did physical languages that were bold and surprising. The show carries their imprint.
What is a common misconception of circus?
It used to be animals, clowns, and big tops. Now it’s that circus is a sub-branch of dance or storytelling, rather than a medium with its own history, validity, and ways of communicating.
What does collaboration mean to your practice?
We’ve become serial collaborators – but it took time. Our early shows had no external creatives because we couldn’t yet hear our own voice. I needed to discover it first. Now we work with orchestras, designers, all kinds of artists. But Circa’s spirit has to remain the major element. Wolf is very much that.
” We committed to doing nothing we already knew how to do. As the show emerged, so did physical languages that were bold and surprising. “
How do you nurture creativity outside of work?
Family. Young children. A dog. Bookshelves full of unread books, websites full of unwatched films. A hunger for creative encounters and a nagging sense that I’m nowhere near cultured enough.
What do you want people to take away from Wolf?
I can’t answer that – people will take what they want. What matters to me is that they experience an authentic, engaged, and powerful work of art. The rest is up to them.
Who are you creating your work for, and how free are you to create the work you want to create?
I create with a sense of audience, with the people I’m working with, with Circa’s history and the great ensembles who’ve been on our stage before. I’m in conversation with the art form, and yes, somewhat with myself. It’s not about freedom – it’s about engagement and connectivity.
Is there a piece of advice you’ve received that you often find yourself returning to?
Don’t eat the rider. You’ll get fat.