Breaking boundaries: B-Boys and Fly Girls return for second spin at Fringe World 2025
After sell-out shows at Fringe World 2024, B-Boys, Fly Girls are returning this year with B-Boys, Fly Girls Vol.2, an all-new show set to tear up the dance floor of the Big Top at The Pleasure Garden from Friday, January 17, to Sunday, January 26—with tickets on sale now. BEC WELDON caught up with co-director and performer Stacey Thompson to find out how they’ll have audiences in a spin this summer.
Thanks for joining us, Stacey. You’re returning to Fringe World for the 2025 season with an all-new show. How are you feeling about returning to the festival?
Thanks for having me, Bec. We’re really excited to be hitting the stage again. Fringe World Festival provides such a great platform for local artists to showcase their talent and do what they love on stage, and we’re always super grateful to be a part of it, even more so when it’s our own creative production!
Your first show, B-Boys, Fly Girls, was a success with sell-out shows at the festival. What can new and returning audiences expect from volume 2?
Volume 2 is bringing a whole new show but with the same high energy and thrilling vibes. We’ve added a few new faces to the cast, expanding on our local all-star cast. You’ll also see more collaborative pieces this year, highlighting the different talents of each of our cast members and intertwining them.
The show features elite breakers and aerial artists from Perth. How did the first iteration of the show come about, and what inspired you and Geoff Thompson to combine breaking with aerial artistry?
Geoff and I met as teenagers through dancing, and in our 15+ years together, we have never done a show together. This show was a dream of mine to bring Geoff’s breaking background and my aerial circus background together, merging the art forms in a way we haven’t seen done before.
Breaking and aerial artistry seem to be very different art forms. How did you approach the direction of the show, with co-director Geoff Thompson, to merge and coordinate the forms?
While completely different, both art forms share a lot of similarities. For both, expression and musicality are key, and they both require a lot of skill and strength to execute effectively. Ultimately we wanted to create something entertaining and unique that would capture audiences of different interests, ages and backgrounds. Building the show then drew upon our individual experiences as performers in both the circus and breaking scenes and how we wanted to showcase them non-conformably.
The breakers in your show are leaders in their art form in the Perth breaking and hip-hop scene. Can you tell us about their experience of working in a show format that’s quite different from the format of breaking competitions and shorter-form dance?
A 50-min show is certainly not the norm for B-Boys, especially not one so intertwined with other performers of different styles! Luckily we have a passionate crew who love doing what they do and will put in the hard work. It also helps that our cast are all just mates, so training looks a lot like curated run-amok sessions. This playful creative process has been the best way to generate ideas and influenced the show.
Talk us through the devising of the show itself. What was the creative process behind the show?
The premise of B-Boys, Fly Girls Vol.2 is to bring together audiences who would normally only follow one or the other style and showcase something innovative built from the same technical foundations. Leveraging the individual strengths and originality of our cast, we explore not just the art forms on a surface level but go deeper into the foundations and incorporate complementary styles such as soft acrobatics, props, and even ballet. While having contrasting individual styles, we are lucky enough to have a great cast that really clicks and shares the same vision, and so our ideas for this show were able to flow and form authentically and naturally.
Is there a moment of choreography or collaboration that you’re most proud of in the show?
There is one ground routine comprising two aerialists and two breakers, and I’m really proud of how the cast has brought it together. Without giving too much away, the synchronicities between each of the performers’ backgrounds are explored and intertwined, both complementing and contrasting each other in a unique way.
You’ve performed in your fair share of Fringe shows with prestigious companies such as Kinetica and Tone & Cheek. How has this show been different?
I’ve certainly been very lucky to work with such reputable companies, and they’ve both inspired and supported my growth as a performer and creative director. Besides the obvious difference of having breaking and hip-hop play such a huge part in our show, the biggest heartwarming difference for me has been building a show with people I love and giving them more opportunities to be creative and do what they’re passionate about. While I work with a lot of these people within other shows, it’s a different feeling being the one providing the opportunity and supporting them as performers and their creative freedom.
Do you, as a performer, have a favourite memory or notable moment from performing at Fringe in the past?
The most notable moment is definitely last year’s debut of B-Boys, Fly Girls. I’m not going to lie. It was scary submitting the application and then accepting our offer. It was really happening! We were putting on our own show! The satisfaction at the end of the season, having sell-out sessions, an encore season offer, and phenomenal feedback from audiences and professionals within the festival was like nothing else! More so, hearing our cast say they were proud to be a part of the show was incomparable.
What would you say to audiences to encourage them to see the show?
B-Boys, Fly Girls Vol.2 is a unique and entertaining show with lots of thrills, laughs, and displays of strength and skill. Come along and be awestruck, and maybe even inspired to get into some form of dancing or acrobatics yourself! We had a lot of fun putting together this show and hope that shines through for the audience.
B-Boys, Fly Girls Vol.2 is showing at the Big Top at The Pleasure Garden from Friday January 17, to Sunday January 26, 2025. Tickets on sale now at fringeworld.com.au