Interview: ‘Show Pony’, still hungry

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with still hungry about their piece Show Pony.

Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far?

The three of us were trained in circus schools in Montreal and Berlin. For many years we have been working as soloists, as well as in duos, with different partners and in different companies around the world. In 2017, after years of friendship, we founded our company "still hungry" in Berlin to create our own work in circus.

What is your show about?

Show Pony offers an honest look at life on stage and the difficult moment when the stage no longer wants you. It brings together past, present, and an imagined future as three women try to decide how they can go on, or if they should go on at all. Show Pony is full of love, laughter, and lunacy. It challenges us to think about our prejudices towards age and femininity, both on stage and off. What at first seems to be a look behind the scenes of the circus industry turns into open-heart surgery - a brutally honest confrontation with childhood conditioning, growing older, and the importance of friendship.

What was the inspiration for Show Pony and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?

We start our creative work by asking ourselves a question or thinking about a subject that seems to affect us at the moment. We have conversations, interviews, collect ideas, and do research by watching movies, listening to podcasts, and reading books concerning this topic. Then we find and create a physical approach through circus. We reevaluate our ideas and check if we are heading in the right direction, digging deeper into the topic as we move forwards; we look at what our personal approach is to the chosen subject and where the universal essence lies. Bryony Kimmings, who we work with for the second time on Show Pony, is great at helping us use circus skills in a way that serves the storyline, always gently pushing us to step outside our comfort zone.

What made you want to take Show Pony to the Fringe?

We always wanted to come back with a new piece after our first appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2019 with Raven. We loved it so much - to be part of this amazing international festival - and we're ready to throw our new work into this melting pot of creatives from around the world.

Apart from seeing Show Pony, what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

Try to see and support as many artists as possible, especially smaller companies!

Why should people book Show Pony?

Show Pony is funny, heartbreaking, timely, and serious all at once. It’s a unique circus performance that challenges us to question our prejudices towards age and femininity, on the physical stage and off in our society and lives, through skilled movement.

When and where can people see Show Pony?

13 - 26 August at Summerhall (Main Stage @10:35am). See you there!