Ahead of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, DIVA spoke to this circus artist about bringing trans stories to different mediums
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGE BY FRANZI SCHARDT
Diana Salles’s Delusional: I Killed a Man is a heart-stopping contemporary circus solo exploring transition and self-reinvention. Blending aerial silks, dance, singing and visceral physical theatre, Salles unpacks the haunting act of “killing” one’s former identity. It’s a powerful, moving and visually stunning journey into rebirth.
DIVA spoke to Diana to find out more about what inspired this show.
This new show explores incredibly powerful themes. What inspired the format in which you take this story to the stage?
This show comes from my need to cope – really, cope with a transition that I knew was starting but couldn’t see where it would go. As an artist I needed to bring my inner world into a physical language. Circus gives me a space to translate struggle, beauty, violence, and survival through my body. I wanted to create a format that merges poetic text, movement and risk and I believe, together with the director Firenza Guidi, we did it.
Why is it vital that we see trans stories told in so many different forms?
Because we’re not one story, we are infinite stories. Trans people deserve to see themselves beyond tragedy or tokenism… in poetry, in risk, in humour, in rage, in softness, in circus! The more ways our stories appear, the more we see each other as equals.
How did you first get into circus disciplines like aerial?
I first fell in love with circus back in Brazil, when I realised I could push my body to its limits. Aerial work, especially, became a way for me to claim space, at first artistically, and later as I understood the potential of creating further change with it. To take up the air with all my contradictions. Freedom and rebellion at once. Later, I did my Bachelor’s in Circus at ESAC in Belgium, and since then, I’ve kept exploring and reshaping it into my own language.
What do you hope audiences come away feeling from this show?
I hope they leave with their hearts softer, braver, more aware. I want them to feel the weight and the beauty of being purely human. If someone walks out feeling seen or moved to question the boxes we put around each other, then I’ve done what I came to do.
What does it mean to you as a performer to be going to the Fringe?
It’s a huge step for me. Taking this show to the Fringe means standing in front of the world and saying: this is my story, and it belongs here too. It’s an act of courage, but also of trust in myself, my art, and in the audience’s willingness to meet me there. It feels good to be able to take space, especially as a trans woman today, AND in the UK, where our rights are basically being stripped from us.
Diana Salles is an internationally acclaimed circus artist who specialises in aerial work. Brazilian-born, Diana trained at the prestigious École Supérieure des Arts du Cirque (ESAC) in Belgium, won the Bronze Medal and the “Prix de la Ville de Paris” at the 40th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain (essentially the Circus Olympics). She has also performed as part of critically acclaimed circus collective NofitState, collaborating with The Welsh National Opera on Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice, where she was the first trans woman to play lead character mother of Tadzio. Delusional: I Killed a Man debuted at the Amsterdam Fringe where it won the Best of Fringe Award. This is her first time at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Delusional: I Killed A Man comes to the Edinburgh Fringe from 31 July – 24 August (not 6,12,19), Summerhall (Main Hall), 15:05 (60 mins). Tickets at https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/delusional-i-killed-a-man
DIVA magazine celebrates 31 years in print in 2025. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA+ media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.