Some reunions happen at exactly the right moment. Catching Sean Kempton and Michaela O'Connor walking into that sweltering Giffords tent (see previous post) felt like the circus world folding in on itself in the best possible way.
I have known Sean and Michaela for years, from the days when they were MCs and creative directors of the circus cabarets I curated for Jacksons Lane. Sean is a long-time Cirque du Soleil performer, an original cast member and comedy creator for Franco Dragone's iconic Le Reve in Las Vegas, with credits spanning Secret Cinema, the London Mime Festival and inaugurating the Millennium Dome, where they met. Michaela is also clown, aerialist and director, with credits from Cirque du Soleil to the West End and Broadway, teaching at National Circus. Between them, thirty years of making extraordinary worlds for other people.
Kook Ensemble was founded in 2023, based in North Devon, where Sean is from, is dedicated to character-driven, compelling and playful circus theatre. A company built not on a whim but on decades of accumulated craft, instinct and creative courage. A genuine leap of faith.
As Sean puts it, "We've always been a bit, let's drop everything and... it's a habit for us. But in a good way." The juggling, as he describes it, has to have a logical and psychological sense to it. The acrobatics has a reason for being there. That philosophy runs through everything they make. Their first show, Filibuster, launched the company with characteristic wit and tenderness. Their second, Sand, is something I wrote about at length in Chapter 225 (click here), and it is one of the most quietly poignant pieces of circus theatre I have seen in years: love, memory and dementia held in perfect, heartbreaking balance, developed in part through work with memory cafes in Barnstaple.
This summer, Sand goes to Edinburgh. If you see one show at the Fringe, make it this one.
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