A monster mash of circus, performance art and individual eccentric obsession
—Anni Davey, Flying Fruit Flies AD
How Not To Climb a Mountain is a live performance experiment where physical failure forms the dramaturgy. The work is built through repeated attempts at impossible tasks, allowing mistakes, breakdowns and unintended outcomes to accumulate. Rather than progressing toward resolution, the performance remains unstable, exposing the performers to uncertainty and loss of control.
Circus and physical theatre techniques are present but deliberately undone. Traditions associated with mastery and spectacle are subverted in favour of vulnerability, amateurism and visible effort. The performers persist within actions that resist completion, revealing the labour and frustration usually concealed behind skilled execution.
Live sound is generated entirely through action and material interaction. Multiple guitar amplifiers create directional sound fields, while instruments and tools are misused to produce raw, abrasive and resonant tones. Guitars are chained and dragged, power tools are applied where they do not belong, and sound emerges as a direct consequence of physical strain rather than emotional cue.
The relationship between action and sound remains explicit throughout, keeping process visible and outcomes unresolved. Sound gives weight to movement, amplifying effort, resistance and failure as material events.
How Not To Climb a Mountain foregrounds exposure as both physical and conceptual condition. The work invites audiences into a shared space where trying, failing and continuing become the core experience, and where the act of persistence itself replaces achievement as the central focus.
concept & performance
Skye Gellmann
Lee Wilson
set, lighting and costume design
Mirabelle Wouters
sound design
Lee Wilson
Phil Downing
producer
Michaela Coventry
Video
Full show documentation available on request.
Presenting How Not To Climb a Mountain
Why Program HNTCaM
- Reframes circus and physical theatre through failure, mistake and uncertainty rather than virtuosity
- Strong alignment with experimental circus, live art and cross-disciplinary programs
- Engages queer and non-binary perspectives by foregrounding process, fragility and ongoing negotiation over fixed identity
- Live sound generated directly through action, keeping liveness and risk explicit
- Compact, adaptable format suited to studio theatres and festival contexts
- Appeals to audiences interested in risk, resistance to normative success, and visible process
Format & Scale
- In-theatre performance
- Small to medium-scale work
- Designed for studio theatres, black box spaces and experimental circus contexts
- Single performance format
- Audience seated in close to medium proximity
How Not To Climb a Mountain sits within experimental circus and contemporary performance, drawing on circus vocabularies while deliberately undoing expectations of virtuosity, control and success. The work’s scale supports intimate witnessing and sustained attention, making it well suited to curated live art, queer and experimental programs.
Touring & Presentation
How Not To Climb a Mountain is designed for flexible touring across theatre, contemporary circus and interdisciplinary festival contexts.
- Small touring team
- Compact, transportable set and equipment
- Adaptable to a range of studio theatre and circus-friendly spaces
- Clear bump-in and bump-out processes
- Suitable for experimental circus programs, queer arts festivals and cross-disciplinary platforms
The work’s embrace of failure, exposure and non-mastery aligns strongly with queer performance traditions, allowing presenters to situate the work within conversations around identity, resistance to normative success, and alternative modes of making and performing.
Technical Snapshot
- Theatre-based presentation
- Studio or small to medium performance space
- Multiple guitar amplifiers used as directional sound sources
- Live sound generated on stage through physical action and material misuse
- Handheld tools, instruments and minimal scenographic elements
- Integrated lighting and sound design
Opening Season
Borderville theatre
Flying Fruit Flies, Albury
13 March 2026
How Not to Climb a Mountain is commissioned by Vitalstatistix and developed during residencies at Adhocracy, Critical Path, and Flying Fruit Fly Circus.
