Dr. Suzanne McEndoo is one of the physicists involved in the creation and dramaturgy of Quantum Circus, a visual show combining science, circus and theatre. Quantum Circus is a part of the Future Circus Festival with a total of eight shows in Logomo between 17.-22.7.

The Future Circus Festival kicked off last
night with the premiere of The Quantum Circus, a science and art collaboration
aiming to capture the essence of quantum physics in a circus stage show. I've
been involved in the project since February, assisting with creation of scenes
and ideas during the workshops, but this is the first time I've seen the full
performance and I was so impressed with the result.

The show has two distinct parts. The first
focuses on the more philosophical side of quantum physics. It is less about
individual phenomena and more about the particular mystery of quantum physics
where the observer is part of the experiment and so cannot see the full
picture. We see a scientist stumbling through dark rooms trying to find the
truth through only seeing the parts.

The second part is set in the lab and is
centred around a scientist (a real life scientists, Elsi Laine) and a clown (Inga Bjorn).
At one point Inga enters the acrobatic world of the atoms and becomes an atom
herself in her attempt to understand what they are and what they do.

Some of the scenes I had seen before in
their earlier forms, but they were really brought together with the costuming,
set design and music. One scene in particular still had the ability to surprise
me despite having seen it a dozen times already. Overall, the scenes flowed
smoothly from one to the next and the two hours just flew by.

The Quantum Circus isn't a replacement for
a textbook, or even a popular science book, on quantum physics, but I think it
shows an aspect of the science and the scientists that is hard to capture in
words alone.