The Lifecycle of the Devon Red-legged Robberfly
South Devon National Landscape team are delivering a large Heritage Funded project – Life on the Edge. This project aims to engage communities, famers and landowners to restore species rich grassland on the South Devon coast to secure a future for 30 rare and endangered invertebrates, and to strengthen the connection with nature for people who live, work and play in South Devon.
As part of the Nature Calling project this project, the South Devon team worked with their cultural partners Doorstep Arts to engage new audiences aged 16-30 years old with some of the rare invertebrates native to the area. NDP Circus were selected to deliver workshops and performances based on one of South Devon's flagship species: the Devon Red-legged Robberfly.
The spectacular 45 minute performance included dance, theatre and aerial circus to tell a story about an insects journey from pupae to metamorphoses and its search for love! It was performed on and around a Mutated Apache Piper Aircraft Fuselage transformed into a giant fly, and toured three very different locations in South Devon during July 2025: an urban skate park in Torbay, a rural coastal location at East Prawle - the southernmost tip of the county, and a public open space at the Box in the city of Plymouth.
The performance featured four artists including an aerialist working on a Chinese pole and sound artist Somatic (Somin Griffin-Dave). Somatic created a soundtrack for the performance and associated flash mobs, with found sound from the invertebrates and coast.
Responses from the audience were fantastic:
‘The music was brilliant, just very, very good. Very educational.’ ·
‘Seeing them use circus in a storytelling way. It was funny, engaging, interactive.’
‘It was like watching an abstract painting come to life’
'That was an excellent performance-it was an imaginative way of getting the message about robberflies across as I’ve never heard of them before.'
'To be honest I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve went to a lot of weird places. Pretty out there wasn’t it? Not my cup of tea but then I couldn't take my eyes off of it.’
