National Institute of Circus Arts Debuts DREAMS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR Tonight

Internationally renowned director Firenza Guidi, from NoFit State Circus in Wales, is creating a dynamic live circus experience featuring NICA's graduating artists. This site-specific performance opens tonight 26 November and runs until 6 December, at the custom built National Circus Centre in Prahran.

"Every show that I do is a book of dreams", says Firenza Guidi, "I sell dreams. Most things in life are random. Like the sequence of pictures in a dream."

Audiences can expect a unique encounter. The creative process and technical components will be on display in this site-specific work which engages with the NICA National Circus Centre in

an innovative way. There is no back stage - this is a performance which will be fabricated in front of the eyes of the audience!

Raw, raucous and infectious, Dreams from the Second Floor will explore different types of dreams from those which come to us at night, sometimes so vivid that we can smell and taste and touch, to those which we carry with us through our waking reality. Witness performers weave their way through their own dreams - where things are uncharted and the world is upside down.

Twenty one multi-talented artists will present high level circus skills on a range of apparatus including: Aerial Ring, Aerial Straps, Contortion, Rope, German Wheel, Hand Balancing, Hula Hoops, Roue Cyr, Dance Trapeze, Tightwire and Tumbling.

Milan-born Firenza Guidi is an independent, award-winning theatre, circus and film director, writer and visual artist who has developed a unique performance style through the touring company NoFit State Circus, with productions including Immortal, Tabú and more recently Bianco. For the past twenty years she has been developing her unique style of training and performance, creating small and large scale performances throughout Europe and beyond.

NICA is Australia's Centre of Excellence for training in contemporary circus arts. It is one of eight national arts training institutes and offers Australia's only Bachelor of Circus Arts. Graduates of NICA have gone on to pursue exciting careers both locally and internationally and have contributed to the development of