PESCADO: A Circus Cabaret Fusion

There is something clearly fishy going on at NICA, the only institution in Australia where you can get a Bachelor degree in Circus Arts. The 2nd year students have pooled their talents (yes a fishy pun…) to create a piscean inspired cabaret.

We meet a virtual seafood buffet of characters, based on elements from the ocean, including a Walrus-esque ringmaster, crab-like strong men, a darting shark-like singer and a back-up group who combine both prawns and the Supremes.  The cast twist, jump, lift, catch, climb, synchronize swim and sing in their underwater world while above a lone sunbather spends his day enjoying the seaside, until ultimately he enters the water…  

The highlights included the fish juggling, with a great song choice and clever concept and the performers lifted the mood with their energy and smiles. The live beat box backing to Skate Park Roue Cyr brought a heightened sense of tension to the act and the Broadway Baby Mantra Ray Aerial net capture was a twist in the fishy tail and the ensuing hysteria onstage was very funny. And the 3 golden prawn singers doing a trapeze act while wearing 6-inch high heels was impressive!

There were some early issues with audio during the Venice Beach scene where there was dialogue being shouted over the band performing but hopefully this was just opening night glitches. This scene also had a lot going on so it was difficult to know where to look and gave the scene a feeling of being out of control.

Lighting circus in a small space with a thrust seating configuration has considerable challenges and the lighting was at times atmospheric and other times adequate.

Costuming was appropriately fishy with the Walrus and the baby whale being the standouts.

As with most student productions there was some patchiness in circus skill levels and performance techniques but these NICA students appeared confident, recovered from any slips and worked together to share their love of circus with the audience.

This season was a sell out before opening night but if you want to see some awesome circus talent you can catch LAST ORDERS! performed by the 3rd Year student in June.

Shirley Jensen