Community
17 April, 2026
Don’t miss the circus
THE Warrnambool Community Garden’s transformed quarry amphitheatre will host a striking fusion of contemporary circus and visible engineering tomorrow, Saturday April 18.
Melbourne-based ‘One Fell Swoop Circus’ will present its newest work, In Common.
At the heart of the performance is a large scale tensegrity structure - a seemingly impossible skeleton of steel poles held aloft by an intricate network of ropes, pulleys and tensioned cables.
The structure appears to float, with pressure and force spread across the entire system so that every element “carries” the others, a principle that engineers, rock climbers and arborists will recognise as the essence of tensional integrity.
The rigging design is a collaboration between Jonanthan Morgan, the company’s co director and resident engineer acrobat, and rigger Beau Dudding.
Jonathan brings both circus and engineering expertise to the project, treating the tensegrity frame as a living, load bearing sculpture that must be predictable and safe under the stress of tumbling, balancing and flying bodies.
The team use climbing and rope access equipment - carabiners, slings, and pulleys - deployed in ways that will resonate with audiences who understand the physics of ropes and load sharing.
The structure is not just a backdrop; it shifts and hums as the acrobats move through, on and around it.
The performance echoes the story of the quarry itself.
Once dismissed as an eyesore, the council quarry has been transformed over more than a decade into a lush, award winning garden and performance amphitheatre.
The long term, volunteer driven project has won the Premier’s Sustainability Awards 2022 in the Sustainable Places and Destinations category and been recognised as a finalist in the Banksia Sustainability Awards.
That same balance of persistence, care and shared responsibility underpins the show.
The quarry’s history also speaks to a different kind of rigging.
At one time there were at least 12 quarries in Warrnambool, with workers cutting and moving massive blocks using hand picks and horse drawn cranes, often with minimal safety equipment.
This weekend’s performance is in many ways a reversal: instead of cutting stone from the rock, the company is suspending human bodies and engineered structures in the air above the quarry floor, using rigorous safety standards and modern rigging practices.
Tonia Wilcox, deputy convenor of the Warrnambool Community Garden said seeing the quarry become a stage for this kind of work was extraordinary.
“Just as the garden grew out of a weedy hole in the ground, In Common shows how tension, trust and shared effort can turn something fragile into something strong,” she said.
“The structure literally embodies what we’re trying to build in our community, and the fact that this long term project has been recognised at both state and national levels underlines how much can be achieved when people stay committed to a shared vision.”
The show takes place tomorrow, Saturday April 18, from 5pm-7pm, in the amphitheatre of the Warrnambool Community Garden’s converted quarry.
There will be live music, food trucks and a bar for refreshments with attendees encouraged to pack a picnic rug to enjoy the space prior and post event.
The event is a ticketed community fundraiser for the volunteer run Warrnambool Community Garden, supporting sustainable food production and community connection.
