Hull cemetery to host circus performance

Performers from the Hull Freedom Chorus and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance will join Australian circus ensemble Circa to showcase their circus skills within a cemetery.

The production, named Depart, will take place in Hull’s General Cemetery and will run from 18-21 May.

Visitors can expect to see acrobats and and aerialists performing from the cemetery trees. As well as stunts 100 Hull Freedom Chorus members will be providing a backdrop in a musical arrangement curated by electronic artist Lapalux.

Katy Fuller, executive producer of Depart for Hull 2017, said: “Depart embodies the whole ethos of Hull 2017: bringing world class artists to the city; showcasing and developing local talent and using non-traditional venues to encourage people to look at parts of the city in a whole new light.”

Circa, under the direction of Yaron Lifschitz, has performed to  crowds in 34 countries.

Yaron Lifschitz said: “At the heart of the experience is the attempt to grasp the ungraspable – to connect ourselves with the very liminality that makes us human, to look up even as the long-buried lie beneath our feet.

“Depart is a meditation, a playground for the soulful, an art gallery without walls, a circus in search of transcendence and a hundred moments of joyous beauty. It is performed with respect and aims for rapture.”

Some residents are not happy about the event though calling it “abhorrent”.

Johnathan Edmiston has relatives buried in the neighbouring graveyard which is still open.

He told the BBC: “I think this is completely abhorrent.

“They are swinging from trees like acrobats, performing what is in effect a circus act.

“I feel it is sacrilegious and it is disrespecting the memory of the people who are buried here.”