THROW CATCH COLLECTIVE
ESCALATE

What if you could see music, or hear shapes and patterns?

  • Escalate is a creative rebellion — proof of what happens when Australia's best jugglers do away with the rules and make new choices. Virtuosic juggling, innovative lighting and relentless energy collide with classical guitar and electronic music, much of it generated by the juggling itself. It's a smoothly-flowing hour that scrambles your brain, expands your mind, and redefines juggling as vital, vibrant art rather than a sideshow trick.

  • Circus, physical theatre.

    Duration — 60 mins.
    Company size — [gap, need headcount].
    Venue suitability — Black box, proscenium arch.
    Touring history — European Juggling Festival, Netherlands 2025 · Melbourne Fringe Festival 2024 · Zhangjiajie International Acrobatic Arts Festival, China 2024 · Bunjil Place, Melbourne 2024 · Edinburgh Festival Fringe, UK 2023 · Arts Centre Melbourne 2022.

“A very beautiful spectacle…a magnetic ode to the innate musicality of juggling, and the potential of circus to span genre.” — FEST MAG

“There was a kind of awe in the room at the sheer skill of those before us. The intricacy of each movement, at times like a dance, others like a fight.”
— Mish Graham, Theatre Travels

“For me, this is perfection
—The Circus Diaries

MEET THE ENSEMBLE — the jugglers are the show; naming and picturing them (rather than leaving them as “Australia's best jugglers”) gives presenters a face to book, not just a concept.

BEHIND THE WORK — the fact that the score is partly generated by the juggling itself is a genuinely strong process story, currently buried mid-paragraph. Worth its own section.

PRESENTER LOGISTICS — company size and get-in requirements

Want to present Escalate?

Throw Catch Collective features Byron Hutton, Joe Fisher and Richard Sullivan. The company tour nationally, in 2019 receiving a Green Room Award nomination for their production Jugg Life. Their latest creation, Escalate, has been supported by Melbourne Fringe & Circus Oz’s Springboard program and Creative Victoria.

Escalate has redefined juggling as an engaging, vital, vibrant art, brimming with creative possibility, in the same way that Tap Dogs did for tap dancing more than 30 years ago.

This has already had an impact on the creative sector, with co-creator Joe Fisher being asked to co-write and choreograph Jay Gilligan’s new work, Another Sunset, and has been approached by Sean Gandini to collaborate since Escalate’s premiere. Similarly, composer and performer Samuel Kreusler has collaborated on projects with contemporary dancer Arabella Frahn-Starkie after she praised the show as ‘world class’ and tap dancer Eden Read as a direct result of seeing the production. In recognition of the importance and legacy of this artistic impact, Byron has been invited to teach at the National Youth Circus, the Flying Fruit Fly Circus specifically to impart his style and technique.