Latest news with #acrobatics
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Circa: Wolf review – snarling, sexy circus show is wildly entertaining
Some circus shows start with relatively simple tricks and work up to their big finish, saving the impressive stuff for last. Brisbane's Circa are so confident in the breadth of their skills and invention that right off the bat they bring out a guy who can hold the weight of six other people all balanced in a tower on top of him. It's quite an opening statement. Edinburgh fringe is awash with acrobatics and there are plenty of people trying to do what Circa do – stylish circus with choreographic sensibility; athletic and atmospheric – but this troupe has been at it for 20 years and director Yaron Lifschitz has really got it down. Wolf is a very entertaining hour that embraces animal instincts. It's down with politeness, up with prowling, snarling, shows of sheer strength and seriously sexy posturing (complete with red lipstick). Designer Libby McDonnell's sleek costumes in fawn and black stripes make their own optical effects, too. There might be a touch of the feral, but this show is also super-slick. Bodies fly, hurl, flip, swing, teeter, strain and splat (deliberately) flat on the floor. They toss each other across the stage, from one human tower to another, and test gravity's limits in shape-shifting balances of three, four, five, six people. The fluid interactions are well drilled but still utterly live in the moment. Some highlights: the woman who balances two men on her shoulders – take that, gender norms! A funny set piece with two men in a tight embrace thwarting other performers' increasingly desperate attempts to infiltrate their hug. And the edgy energy of an aerial straps routine where the performer is like a trapped insect, spiky limbs attacking or struggling to get free, rather than the usual silken grace you get from aerialists. There's no great message here, bar 'Look at how awesome these performers are'. They are enjoying every minute, and displaying human instincts as much as animal ones. The charged atmosphere plateaus a little way before the end – a more expansive soundtrack could have helped with the arc – but Circa show they are the masters at what they do. At Underbelly Circus Hub on the Meadows, Edinburgh, until 23 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews
Daily Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Telegraph
Cirque du Soleil Corteo brings death-defying acts to Sydney
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News. How do you beat all the camera-wielding tourists to the best view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Climb a ladder. That's what Russian circus performer Roman Munin did on his first visit to the Harbour City as he prepared for his part in Cirque du Soleil's new show, Corteo. The production, featuring angelic aerial acrobatics, musicians and contorting artists on ribbons in the air, tells the story of a clown named Mauro, imagining his funeral as a festive parade with angels watching over him. Acrobatic ladder performer Roman Munin performing a gravity-defying move.. Picture: Sam Ruttyn Cirque du Soleil is scheduled to perform at Qudos Bank Arena from September 4-14. Picture: Sam Ruttyn The new show, Corteao, tells the story of a man who uses a ladder to cross between Heaven and Earth. Picture: Sam Ruttyn Munin, who began training for the circus at the age of six, plays a blind character whose ladder acts as a bridge between heaven and Earth. He said his character's disability did not stop him being able to 'feel things and angels and interact with them'. 'Our team is amazing and the atmosphere is so great,' he said. 'I think the audience can see it on stage. I'm definitely passionate about it.' Corteo will be performed at Qudos Bank Arena from September 4-14.
Malay Mail
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
Drag, decadence and drama as Versailles orchestra brings 17th-century scandal ‘Affair of the Poisons' to New York debut
NEW YORK, July 24 — Acrobatics, fortune tellers, opulent gowns and palace intrigue: the New York debut of the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra was a performance befitting the era it recalls. Monday's immersive show Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons centred on France's 17th-century period of excess and seediness that its creator, Andrew Ousley, told AFP has parallels to the present day. At the evening staged in Manhattan's new Printemps luxury emporium, guests and performers alike donned velvet waistcoats, silky corsets, feathered headdresses and powdered makeup. Artists perform as guests attend a show called 'Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons.' at the Printemps store in Lower Manhattan, New York City on July 21, 2025. At the evening staged in Manhattan's new Printemps luxury emporium, which opened in March on Wall Street, guests and performers alike donned velvet waistcoats, silky corsets, feathered headdresses and powdery makeup. — AFP pic Core to the performance's tale was the discovery of arsenic, Ousley said — the first 'untraceable, untastable poison.' 'Everybody was just poisoning everybody.' And at the web's centre? A midwife and fortune teller named La Voisin, he said, a 'shadowy-like person who basically would peddle poison, peddle solutions, peddle snake oil.' 'She was the nexus,' Ousley continued, in a scheme that 'extended up to Louis XIV, his favourite mistresses' — inner circles rife with backstabbing and murder plots. The poisoning scandal resulted in a tribunal that resulted in dozens of death sentences — until the king called it off when it 'got a little too close to home,' Ousley said with a smile. 'To me, it speaks to the present moment — that this rot can fester underneath luxury and wealth when it's divorced from empathy, from humanity.' Along with a programme of classical music, the performance included elaborately costumed dancers, including one who tip-toed atop a line of wine bottles in sparkling platform heels. The drag opera artist Creatine Price was the celebrant of the evening's so-called 'Black Mass,' and told AFP that the night was 'a beautiful way to sort of incorporate the ridiculousness, the campness, the farce of Versailles with a modern edge.' Drag is 'resistance,' she said, adding that her act is 'the essence of speaking truth to power, because it really flies in the face of everything in the opera that is standard, whether it's about gender or voice type.' Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra during a show called 'Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons.' at the Printemps store in Lower Manhattan, New York City July 21, 2025. — AFP pic Period instruments The Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra formed in 2019, and its first stateside tour is underway: the series of shows kicked off at Festival Napa Valley in California before heading to New York. On Wednesday, it will play another, more traditional show at L'Alliance New York, a French cultural centre in Manhattan. The orchestra aims to champion repertoire primarily from the 17th and 18th centuries, and plays on period instruments. 'Playing a historical instrument really gives me a feeling of being in contact with the era in which the music was composed,' said Alexandre Fauroux, who plays the natural horn, a predecessor to the French horn distinguished by its lack of valves. Ousley runs the organisation Death of Classical, an arts non-profit that puts on classical shows in unexpected places, including the catacombs of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery and crypts in Manhattan. Madame Athenais de Montespan played by Erin Dillon performs during a show called 'Versailles in Printemps: The Affair of the Poisons.' at the Printemps store in Lower Manhattan, New York City on July 21, 2025. The immersive show 'The Affair of the Poisons' centred on France's 17th-century period of excess and seediness that its creator, Andrew Ousley, told AFP has parallels to the present day. — AFP pic Monday's spectacle included over-the-top performance, but Ousley emphasised that the evening was ultimately a celebration of classical artists. 'These are players who play with such energy, to me it's more like a rock band than an orchestra,' he said. And the mission of putting on such shows is about something bigger, Ousley said: 'How do you fight against the darkness that seems to be winning in the world?' 'When you can sit and feel, with a group of strangers, something that you know you feel together — that's why I work, because of that shared connection, experience and transcendence.' — AFP
BBC News
14-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Plans to convert warehouse into circus school approved
Plans to convert an empty warehouse in Nottingham into a circus school have been given the City Council has approved a planning application from Tuyo Circus Arts to use an industrial unit at Nottingham Wholesale and Trade Park as a specialist circus arts training comes after the school - which has trained hundreds of children and adults in circus skills over the past 12 years - was was left with days to leave its premises in Sneinton in March. According to planning documents the new site is "uniquely suitable" for aerial and acrobatic disciplines as it has high ceilings and a clear span space. The school teaches about 100 students each week in classes including acrobatics, aerial skills such as trapeze, ropes, hoops and other circus documents state: "The facility would support improved access to creative, inclusive fitness opportunities in Nottingham, while making effective use of a currently vacant industrial unit."
Washington Post
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Romeo and Juliet go to the circus
Mercutio and Tybalt have brawled with a spectrum of weaponry since William Shakespeare wrote their lethal quarrel into 'Romeo and Juliet.' The armament of choice has rarely been a teeterboard. In 'Duel Reality,' a diverting R&J riff told through acrobatics and circus feats at Harman Hall, two performers representing these characters vie to execute the most virtuosic techniques from opposite ends of a seesaw-like plank. As one lands, the other hurtles into the air, often ascending to heart-stopping heights and sometimes executing flips, twists and somersaults while plunging back to the terrifyingly narrow board. (Einar Kling Odencrants and Anton Persson fill the roles through July 6; Nino Bartolini and Colin Vuillème swap in Tuesday.)
