Stumble danceCircus are now off on tour with Box of Frogs, and wherever they go they are attracting press interest. There is a great piece in the Yorkshire Post this week featuring Mish Weaver, founder of Stumble danceCircus and it really gets under her skin and the skin of the show.

The performance – whose style has become known as Bipolar Circus – portrays both the unpleasant and humorous dimensions to bipolar disorder. Mish says: “I don’t think manic depressives like themselves. I didn’t. It is like being stuck with someone who you hate and you cringe when they talk. I wanted the audience to feel that – to be irritated and to dislike the behaviour. But there is also plenty of comedy. Box of Frogs is also funny.”

Mish talks movingly about her own experiences, of both the highs and the lows, and of their natural link to circus:

“I was addicted to the danger of it and the relationship with the audience who know that you could fall and die, as I normally performed without a lunge. I suppose I didn’t really care what happened to me…. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who hated themselves as much as I used to hate myself,”

Don’t let the dark side scare you off, its all about real human nature. As Mish said above, Box of Frogs is very funny, and very circus:

My passion is circus and my experience is bipolar disorder. Box of Frogs brings the two together.

And if you caught the show at Southbank I am sure you agree – through movement, colour, form, music, people and words she really does capture the moods, chaos, humour and misery of bipolar disorder.

The piece is accessible to children too – and is having a significant affect on those it reaches. After another show at the Unlimited Festival last week, a woman came up to Mish and thanked her for Box of Frogs. Mish asked if she had enjoyed it and the woman said she had but more importantly so had her 8 year old son.  At the end of the show he had asked her, his mum,  if she was Bipolar and she told him – for the first time – that yes she is.  She thanked Mish for giving her a positive framework from which to talk to her son about it.

Now thats impact.