Acrobats raise the roof
The audience can see the whites of Luis Daza’s eyes while he is midair.
The remarkable thing? He just exploded from the barrel of a cannon. The terrifying thing? His landing pad is between the steel guardrails on the edges of the grandstand.
The Circus – Townsville has set up shop under the big top in Garbutt. They will be flipping, dancing, leaping and crashing until May 28.
Awash in neon light, dancers perform the opening number in skeleton-like outfits that look like a futuristic Day of the Dead parade. Or a rave after the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics final. Either way it’s trippy and energetic.
Before the crowd knows it acrobats are being spun and flung by the world’s scariest swing set. This 360 degree contraption, a Russian Swing, has a deck that allows four people to build up momentum. It does a revolution, and at full speed catapults performers up, out and into a sheet strung to the ceiling. The terror and joy of seeing a human some 10 metres in air like a helpless bird is difficult to describe. But breathtaking nonetheless.
My personal funny bone is most susceptible to the absurd, and the black and white clowns had me in stitches. Whether banging and bashing with their props or slipping and sliding in a kiddie pool, the jokesters will have you asking: How many microphones could he possibly have in his pants?
The rope slingers and whip crackers had the Townsville crowd hooting and hollering like the Wild West. They pulled out a whip some 13 metres long – just my estimate, but the stage seemed about 10 metres across. With a pull, flick and a crack, the whip explodes inches above the people in the front row.
The dancers in the show encapsulate grace. Hoisting themselves high in the air with seemingly crepe paper-thin sheets or contorting to spin and balance hula hoops reminds me I need to start doing yoga again.
Then the motorbikes are kicked into gear and man and machine fly through the air. Inside a tent. Seemingly within inches of the light fixtures.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen a motorbike riding around inside a steel globe, it’s never not entertaining.
Two riders in perfect synch, weaving between each other encased in a giant steel ball: mesmerising.
Four dirtbikes defying gravity, so close you’re not even sure how four humans and their bikes fit in the globe. Let alone do loop-the-loops. And evade a catastrophic crash. That is simply incredible.
The Circus is at 53-65 Duckworth St, Garbutt, from May 4-28.
The show is produced by Weber Bros Entertainment.