We value quality, audacity and humanity. Connecting communities, sharing skills, challenging, engaging and delighting audiences through narrative works in a genre-bending blend of circus and theatre.

The Dust Palace is New Zealand's most established circus theatre company.

Established in 2009, we aim to:

• Foster circus arts practitioners in Tāmaki Makaurau and from across Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Create circus theatre - taking Aotearoa’s stories to the world.

2011

Being invited to open Q Theatre’s Loft space in 2011 was a notable step forward in our journey. We chose to develop Venus Is... which follows the conversation between an older couple trying to figure out when they stopped being real with one another.

"As one of the people said after the show, “I pity the next group using this space, ‘cos how is anyone going to be able to beat that?" Sharu Delilkan, Theatre Scenes

2012

Our next significant step was the show Love and Money, devised from the real-life experiences and writings of director Mike Edward. Love and Money was developed for the Hastings Opera House in 2011, re-developed for TAPAC Theatre Auckland 2012, and again in 2013 for Downstage theatre, Wellington. The show placed the circus work primarily within the context of a strip club, a setting which enabled a narrative flow, punchy dialogue and a bounty of physical comedy.

2013 - 2014

During this time we presented our first show in a dance context, Same Same, But Different which was a series of same-sex dance/circus duets, and also our first creation in connection with Auckland Live, Knock Knock.

2015

By 2015, we’d had toured shows ...with a stranger..., Love and Money, Venus is... and Cirque non Sequitur.

Ready for new takes on how story and circus interact, we set about creating two new works: Top of the Heap and Ithaca. Top of the Heap, derived from a performance installation made at Splore, was set on a pile of (well-secured) furniture. The show’s unique storytelling was challenged and enhanced by the pathways the circus performers could take on the ‘set’. In contrast, Ithaca was an elaborate dinner-theatre production in collaboration with Q Theatre. Ithaca was a cirque-musical re-telling of Homer’s epic narrative poem The Odyssey, told as a space opera.

2016

During the research process for Venus is... in 2011 we’d come across the narrative poem by Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market, and decided then that it was expansive enough to stage as circus theatre. In 2016 we began developing this work, a process that would take two years to fully satisfy our now more developed sense of telling a story via the spectacle of circus.

We took The Goblin Market to OFF-CINARS, the world-renowned dance and circus-focused arts market in Montreal, the home of contemporary circus. The production, which involved considerable investment, was rewarded the following year, by being picked up for a season at The Cultch in Vancouver and at The Centaur in Montreal.

“With very few words, they captured some of the key themes of temptation, seduction, and redemption in beautiful, physically demanding circus performances. The moving balance beam, ropes, aerial hoop, and a stack of chairs all showcased the incredibly artistry of the three performers”Lauren Chancellor, The Review Weekly

2017

After a performance for Lakeside Concert in Rotorua, The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra approached us about a collaborative work which culminated in a sold out Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre for the show Midnight. The show was so successful that they instantly entered a biennial agreement for these large-scale works, contribution towards the youth show KiwiKapers. Midnight was followed by Dawn in 2019, filling an estimate of 4000 seats.

2018

Also in 2017, The Dust Palace were approached at the event industry conference, Meetings, by Venues and Events Palmerston North about providing a show for their stadium in 2018. This again sparked a bi-annual collaboration with the production of Le Cirque Volé and subsequent engagement from all levels of the Manawatu community. We quickly re-framed the show as Human for a fundraiser season in Auckland and a rapt audience of 4300 in Invercargill.

The rhythm makes it impossible to tear your eyes away, but with three stages (the main stage, and two secondary stages) and a relatively large cast there are more details to capture than mere eyesight can manage. - Alana Dixon-Calder, Theatreview

"...get ready to appreciate how wildly contemporary circus is evolving in this world."

- Janet Smith - The Georgia Straight

2020

Pre-covid, saw us tour The WonderWombs to The Cultch in Vancouver and develop PULP for Hamilton Gardens Festival. Later in 2020 after the first wave of lockdowns and a complete re-structure of the organisation, we re-developed Ithaca into the stadium scale requested by Venues and Events Palmerston North, marking our largest and most successful story-circus combination to date.