Designed by Martin Sharp

Designed and made in 1982. The performance season lasted June 23-8 August.

Kerry Dwyer kept the poster as a record of her time working with the circus. She had been a founding member of APG at the Pram Factory and La Mama. With an interest in physical theatre, she became a circus performer, toured with Circus Oz and has directed the Wimmins Circus. Both her children travelled with Circus Oz with their mother. 'It seemed like an romantic thing to do to go off in the circus with the children' (Kerry Dwyer, interview with Peter Cox, April 1998). They joined Circus Oz in 1981 when it went to Port Fairy, then on a Murray River tour, then to Canberra (around Christmas 1981).

This poster advertises Circus Oz's season in Sydney, June to August 1982 when Kerry and the children lived on the lot with the circus at Sydney's Wentworth Park. The kids went to school at Darlinghurst but liked to involve themselves with the circus. They operated the fairy floss van, making and selling the stuff. Nellie also made biscuits on the bus and sold them at interval as 'Nellie's bus-made bikkies'. At the ages 6 and 9, Nellie and Jake Blundell called a circus meeting and announced that they wanted to appear in the show performing a clown routine. Along with another boy named Toby, the kids developed their own act, 'The Honeybee and the Hive', making their costumes and devising a routine themselves. (They did not wear the t-shirts in their act). Kerry Dwyer has appeared in the films On Guard and Molly, and has directed films including Bruce Cuts off his Hands.

Kerry Dwyer obtained the poster while working with the circus.

Poster, 'Circus Oz', paper, designed by Martin Sharp, New South Wales, Australia, 1982

Poster advertising Circus Oz's 1982 season at Sydney's Wentworth Park.

Vertical format screen printed poster, blue background with yellow and red border, white stars scattered across ground. Text at upper edge in small white letters, 'With the assistance of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust'. The central text of the poster is in large yellow and red capitals, 'Circus Oz' . Beneath, the text, 'Wentworth Pk, 23 June - 8 August. Mitchells Bass'.

Made: Sharp, Martin; Australia; 1982


Used: Dwyer, Kerry;

Used: Circus Oz;

Owned: Dwyer, Kerry;

None

98/108/8

1982

1016 mm

757 mm