A suspended rig dominated the arena floor as performers moved between aerial silk, straps and ground-based acrobatics. Varekai by Cirque du Soleil, photographed at the Genting Arena in Birmingham on Thursday 2 March 2017, combined theatrical costuming with layered staging and elevated apparatus across multiple levels.

Photographing the production required precise timing at height and speed. As a Birmingham-based performance photographer, I focused on peak extension during aerial sequences, balancing wide frames that revealed the scale of the arena with tighter compositions that captured expression mid-flight.

The result reflects both the engineering of the set and the physical control underpinning the spectacle.