Feel the heat: audience members are within touching distance of the performers.
Billed as intoxicating blend of spectacle, comedy and cabaret, La Ronde does not disappoint. The performers – who include acrobats, trapeze artistes and aerialists – hail from Australia and overseas, and do things with their bodies which cause us mere mortals wonder and amazement. And, because the Grand Electric is such an intimate space, we can gawp and gasp at very close range. The muscles. The gleaming, toned bodies. The strength.
Danik Abishev, one of the first to take to the round stage solo, is a case in point. From Australia, Abishev is a dynamo, able to walk on his hands, do amazing balancing acts atop a ladder, holding his body at right angles on just the one arm – and keep smiling throughout. Later on in the show, he sets fire to the ladder he’s just climbed. If you’re sitting near the front, you can feel the heat!
Zoë Marshall (Australia/UK) is a ‘hair hanging icon’, which means she performs acrobatic acts above our own heads, suspended from a rope. She can make you feel quite dizzy. (And pathetically unfit.) Same things can be said about pyramid-trapeze virtuoso Diana Bondarenko, who hails from Ukraine/Germany. Her bodily contortions also seem impossible. Except she does them.
Washington trapeze maestro, Aussie Adam Malone takes things to a different level, with his pleasers and his hula hoops to the beat of ‘Born to be Wild’. Can’t beat Monsieur Malone for flamboyance and a sense of mischief.
Geniris (who’s from the Dominican Republic) was the red-clad chanteuse for the evening, and Ukrainian Sergiy Mischurenko showed what he can do atop an aerial pole. But it was left to the UK’s Sam Goodburn to supply generous helping of comedic fun. No slouch as a daredevil unicyclist, Goodman is a hoot. Having lost his trousers (just go and see), he then attempts to put them on again, whilst riding his unicycle. And hoping for help from a member of the audience. And eating biscuits. The man likes a biscuit. Goodman, with a history of street performance, knows how to engage an audience and make them laugh. Unforgettable.
The Grand Electric is surely one of the best cabaret spaces in Australia. And La Ronde, with its lithe bodies, live music, non-stop entertainment (well, there is an interval in the 90 minute show)… what’s not to like?
Tickets: from $75 through to a ringside VIP table for two with Moet for $399
More: https://larondetheshow.com/sydney/
