In late February, Flipside welcomed our newest artist in residence Alex Mizzen.

Alex is a trained gymnast and a graduate of the National Theatre Ballet and worked as a contemporary dancer before turning her eye to circus. Now as an established circus artist she specialises in both hand balance and aerial chair and has worked with leading Australian and international companies.

As the current artist in resident, Alex is using her time at Flipside Circus for the creative development of a full-length solo work entitled Invisible Things to be premiered at the Anywhere Theatre Festival in May 2018.

The work is devised from observing her life through 17 years of personal journals. “When I re-read these journals, I witnessed a myriad of… well honestly I still falter when I try to find the word to explain these things. They are: a sense of displacement, not belonging, perfectionism, control, fear, societal expectations, negative thoughts, and misguided self image to name a few. Lacking the vocabulary to aptly categorize them I named them the invisible things and so both this project and its working title was born,” explains Alex.

“I am extremely grateful to Flipside for this opportunity. To create a personal work that means so much to me and one that I feel in its fruition has the ability to speak to what may not be realised as a shared experience and potentially shine a light where one was not before.”

Alex will be based at Flipside Circus until early April 2018.

Image credits: Billie Wilson-Coffey