When aerial artist Angola Murdoch takes the stage at Harbourfront Centre this week, she brings with her more than 25 years of circus-theatre experience. And as she explained to me in a recent Zoom conversation from her studio space, she is also bringing – figuratively and literally – the story of her backbone.
With a pole, trapeze, and red aerial silk plainly visible behind her, Murdoch positively radiates warmth and creative purpose – and when I inquire about it, she offers a mini-tour of the space behind her, pointing out equipment and props from past productions that include a flying horse, a rhinoceros, and a giraffe. She also describes the pole with a level of specificity whose significance becomes fully clear only later in our conversation.
Her solo show Twist of Fate, co-produced by Lookup Theatre and Dance Makers, is deeply personal. It tells the story of her childhood diagnosis of scoliosis and the journey of resilience, transformation and agility that she undertook to become an acclaimed, internationally touring aerialist. This is not a typical circus performance: it’s a multimedia production blending contemporary circus with live music and visual storytelling, in order to create what Murdoch describes as “metaphor… all the equipment means something.” To tell her story, Murdoch weaves aerial silks, dance, theatre, projection mapping, and even custom-built apparatuses into a memoir that quite literally . . . soars.
A life in motion
Murdoch grew up on a family farm in Grey County, Ontario. A childhood filled with dance and gymnastics laid the groundwork. Over time, her movement repertoire expanded to include aerial circus arts, acrobatics, and even capoeira. She remembers vividly the pivotal moment when her dream took full shape: “The year after all of my scoliosis treatments and my surgery, my mom took me to a circus show… and that’s when I saw aerial silks for the first time. And as soon as I saw it, I thought, that’s so cool. That’s what I want to do.”
But living in a small town made circus training seem inaccessible – until one serendipitous encounter in Toronto changed everything. She was in Dufferin Grove Park, and another park goer had rigged up silks in a tree. “That thing that I saw, that I was so in love with—and I didn’t know how to do—was right here in front of me,” she recalls. She went up to the man and asked, “How did you get doing this?” His answer was the Toronto Circus School. So it was possible to train in this, she thought. And this is what she did, through private lessons, instead of attending the school.
Since that time, she has built a celebrated career in circus arts as a performer, educator, and creator. (Performing as a Klingon aerialist on Star Trek: Discovery remains a career highlight!) Currently, Murdoch is a company member of Femmes Du Feu Creations, and through her own company LookUp Theatre, she creates contemporary circus productions that are inspired by real-life narratives – just like the autobiographical Twist of Fate. She also serves as the company’s founding artistic director, and under her leadership, LookUp has become a Dora Award–winning company recognized for its innovative blend of circus and theatre.
The twist
One of the most visually arresting elements in Twist of Fate is a custom-built apparatus that is modelled after the Harrington rods which were implanted in Murdoch’s spine during her surgery. “The nagging image to start this iteration for the show was to build my spine… into an aerial apparatus… It’s an aerial pole, and I actually have these cross bars too,” she explains, holding up parts of the pole. “This is what’s in my spine.”
And in the show, this pole is the central metaphor. “I dance around it, and it’s representing me.” It’s like formally recognizing and “accepting that I have this in my body… I’ve been an aerialist for 25 years and travelled all over the world, and met lots of people and been in lots of shows. And that’s what that part of the show represents.” And to be extremely clear, a big part of what it represents is pain. Murdoch uses silks to portray her surgery and recovery. “I have a spine puppet, and I knot aerial silks, and put these dowels through it so it looks like a spine… I deconstruct it into silks, and then do a silk act on it, and that represents the surgery.”
One of the show’s most striking sequences takes audiences into what Murdoch calls “Underland,” a metaphor for being under anesthesia during her ten-hour spinal surgery and “how that felt to know that for 10 hours, I was put to sleep,” she explains. “One interesting thing that happens in the surgery is, at one point, once they’re done putting the hardware in, they wake you up to see if you can still move, because it’s a very dangerous surgery. So [in the show,] I’m doing things on the silk. Then I do a big drop.” This move illustrates that pivotal moment during her surgery. When the doctors awakened her, they confirmed that everything had gone well because she “nearly jumped off the operating table.” “So I definitely wasn’t paralyzed,” she chuckles.
Collaboration and inclusivity
As powerful as her personal story is, Murdoch is quick to acknowledge the people who help bring Twist of Fate to life. Long-time collaborator Matthew Reid, an award-winning composer and performer, provides a bespoke score: “Him and I are so synchronized that . . . I can say something, and then it happens,” she smiles.
Script director Ken Hall—who, like Murdoch, has scoliosis and Harrington rods in his spine—brought a shared perspective. This was a resonant opportunity “to work with someone that had the same lived experience as me”, she notes. “We’re rare people with Harrington rods… and all of his memories, because they were so similar, really helped layer on the script.”
Murdoch’s vision extends beyond the storytelling of Twist of Fate and into the show’s accessibility. From a tactile set for blind and low-sighted audience members to real-time audio description, inclusivity is embedded into the experience. “If it’s possible for everyone to experience the show, why wouldn’t I do the work to make that happen?” she asks. And Twist of Fate is one of the few circus productions in Canada offering such accessibility measures. The May 10th performance will include ASL interpretation. The May 11th show will feature audio description by Rebecca Singh and a specially crafted mini touch set, allowing blind and low-vision audience members to physically explore miniature versions of key props and apparatus during the performance. Additionally, a sensory touch tour of the full set will take place one hour before the show.
For Murdoch, creation is an act of trust as much as craft. “I direct shows, and I am always telling my cast, trust the process… I talk about plugging into the art ether… if you can just trust and plug into it, then the show kind of makes itself… I don’t even know,” she smiles. “It just gets in there and then, I have to do it.”
Likewise, Toronto audiences wanting to experience the uniqueness of Twist of Fate following its triumphant cross-Canada tour in 2023, have to make plans to visit Harbourfront Centre Theatre from May 9 to 11, 2025. Reserve tickets at harbourfrontcentre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine, 2025
