The 360 ALLSTARS are celebrating the anniversary of their first performance in 2013 by taking their phenomenal show on the road across a four-continent world tour. Their tour landed at The Riverside Theatre in Parramatta just in time for the school holidays. There were plenty of kids in the audience for this permission.
As 360 ALLSTARS suggests, the theme of this urban street circus is all about the 360 degrees of rotation. World Champion and World Record-holding artists were sourced from countries all over the world for their skills in this area. Director and producer Gene Peterson envisioned creating a contemporary urban circus, where the more traditional acts were updated with an urban performance style for a street, edgy feel.
The Ringmaster is now a live looping rap artist (Vida Sunshyne) whose original and fast-paced words accompany the artists on stage, musically narrating whilst they are performing their speciality act. Set alongside Vida Sunshyne was Jordan, the drummer, behind an impressively large drum kit set up, which he clearly knew how to make sing during the show and during his remarkable drum solo.
Instead of a unicyclist for their circus, the 360 ALLSTARS featured an extraordinary BMX Flatlander Pereira, who wows the audiences with his balance and absolute control of a spinning BMX bike. I could almost hear the kids in the audience thinking, “Tomorrow—I’m going to try that!”
The cast worked together to present a ‘video game’ to showcase the Breakdancing Freestyling duo, BBoy Jack and BBoy Alejandro, the show’s version of acrobats. This was done in such an original way, with the screen showing their strengths/ health in a bar format, much like in a video game, while they battled it out on stage, breakdancing. Both dancers had so much style and coolness in their breakdancing, which included spinning atop their heads, hands-free!
A juggler usually entertains the crowd at the circus, but in 360 ALLSTARS, they had Fume executing the most difficult tricks with his basketballs. He spun and moved them around his body with absolute ease. He involved the audience in a ‘game show’ where the audience chanted “Press it! Press it”, referring to a big red button with the words “Do Not Press” on the wall. As each red button was pressed, another basketball appeared for Fume to spin and balance. He made juggling four basketballs and balancing two spinning basketballs on top of each other look easy.
For me, Curtis’s Cyr Wheel was a firm favourite. He spun it rapidly and then hopped inside. This showcased a continuously spinning human who used his body to do many tricks while travelling around the stage. The audience was left wondering how, when he hopped off the Cyr Wheel, Curtis was able to walk in a straight line.
It may not be a traditional circus under the big top, but the energetic 360 ALLSTARS assure us that it’s time for a new tradition – it is time to flip the big top upside down and spin it around.
360 ALLSTARS is an hour-long play suitable for people of all ages. It will perform at The Riverside Theatre on April 20th and 22nd, 2024, before moving on to other theatres in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.
