Cirque Appetit

Roll up! Cirque Appetit promises to indulge your senses by providing a sumptuous feast of skill and brilliance. The performers are a collective from Perth’s prestigious circus and theatre schools and they combine their talents using comedy, performance art, circus, dance and physical theatre.

Perth Creator Dawn Pascoe whetted the appetites of fringe goers in 2011 when she collaborated with musician Nikki Dagostino to form a ‘cabaret circus’. For this Fringe the work has been extended to include comedy, music and narrative. This feast is woven together by our MCs for the evening, Hostess One and Hostess Two. These ever-so quirky and cute look-alikes, bashfully interacted with each other and the audience, creating great anticipation for what is to come!

The glamorous Miss Squeezy Box set the cabaret scene by descending down the central aisle with her French accordion tones layered over a variety of recorded sound scapes.

Performers then delighted the audience with intricate and seamless choreography, almost death defying, in and around a variety of apparatus and scaffolding. Although it all looked effortless, performers’ bodies spun around poles, turned, entwined and flipped with only as much as a limb gripping the scaffold! Other traditional forms of juggling and cube spinning were included, followed by a series of weight-bearing lifts displaying incredible strength and endurance.

Pascoe seemed to be the master of the trapeze. Rather than a demonstration of skill, she turned this into a pas de deux ballet showing manipulation and initiation of movement from both artist and apparatus. A clear relationship was formed with the trapeze, telling a story of power, strength, conflict and struggle but with sheer grace. The work contained wonderful connections and transitions with earth and air.

This work was performed in the State’s Old Treasury building, which has been an abandoned space for 15 years. Fringe Director and Chief Executive Director Marcus Canning secured this great jewel and Fringe World has given audiences and performers a unique chance to enjoy this historic building before the commencement of total refurbishments in 2012.

Cirque Appetit is a jewel among the treasure, and there is absolutely ‘nothing rotten about this show’.

My recommendations are to include some program notes for the audience as they would be proud to know that the performers are all home grown.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Cirque Appetit

Treasury Postal Hall
Corner St Georges Tce & Barrack St Perth
Monday & Tuesdays, January 30–February 7, 2012
Bookings: www.fringeworld.com.au