The cast of Velvet brought the glitz and glamour of the Spiegeltent to life on Friday.
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The acrobatic and cabaret artists turned some tricks to promote the Spiegeltent’s main show of the season, which has already seen some performances sold out.
The show, starring Marica Hines and Tom Oliver, is loosely based on the infamous New York nightclub Studio 54 and involves a discoteque circus (think Circue du Soleil or Circus Oz).
The quickest complete costume change in the show is by Tom Oliver. He gets out of his black pants, tie, shoes and white shirt into a purple/ blue jumpsuit, feathers and boots in 20 seconds.
There are 115 costumes pieces including shoes, hats and accessories.
Craig Reid, the incredible Hula Boy, uses 60 gold hoops of different sizes on the show - four include special LED lighting. Lookout for Reid’s “human slinky” involving 51 hoops spinning at once.
HOW THE SPIEGELTENT WAS PUT TOGETHER:
Specialist tent experts have been flown in from the Netherlands to construct the much anticipated Aurora Spiegeltent this week, Merrigong Theatre Company’s newest venue.
The glitzy, mirrored antique big-top travels around the globe setting down pegs for weeks at a time and will be stationed in the Wollongong Arts Precinct during April.
It will seat around 800 guests, has its own bar and will host cabaret, comedy, children’s shows, acrobats and musicians.
“The tent is from Belgium originally. It was owned by an old family who traveled the fairgrounds with it. Then in the ‘40s and ‘50s [Spiegeltents] weren’t much use anymore so they put it aside in a barn,” co-owner Daan Visser.
It was decades later his company, Van Rosmalen, found it and restored it.
Their company brings a Spiegeltent to Australia five or six times a year, across Europe 50 to 60 times and also to America.
Mr Visser started working with tents as a summer job during college but has never looked back.
“I think that our business is we work to entertain other people, we make everybody’s life a little bit nicer, I think that’s what I like about the work,” he said.