Lexicon NoFit State Circus

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Wed 03 Oct 2018 - Sun 21 Oct 2018

Lexicon – NoFit State Circus

It's Melbourne International Arts Festival time - one of my favourite times of the year. Eighteen days of performance across multiple venues and multiple price ranges, including lots of free events and family-friendly shows.

Lexicon - the UK's leading large-scale contemporary circus company - is one of the featured events of the festival. Located under a pop-up big top near the Observatory Entrance at the Royal Botanic Gardens, it's hard to miss.



The show begins in what looks like a Dickensian classroom full of street urchins. Looming over their heads is a forbidding Miss Trunchbull-like figure attempting to maintain order. Ropes and pulleys are a major feature of this performance, with acrobats doubling as counterweights in their 'downtime'. That is, when they're not picking up an instrument or a microphone to provide the eclectic soundtrack to the show. Talk about multi-tasking.



There are giant hoops, a flamethrower, a tightrope walker, frenetic incidental gymnastics and an air of frantic activity throughout. It's a serious business hoisting people up and down on ropes for two hours. A highlight was the nerdy Where's Wally who managed to get down to his undies and put on a suit from atop a two-metre high unicycle.

There is nothing hi-tech about Lexicon. It's good old-fashioned acrobatics, set to original music that is occasionally bone-rattlingly loud but always well-executed. The talent and fitness of the performers is evident - not a tuck shop lady arm among them - but on occasion, their expectation of audience applause outweighs the feats on display. A dramatic build-up might result in little more than a pretty visual tableau rather than the acrobatic feat the audience was expecting.



Lexicon is a hectic two hours of fun performed by a bunch of young elite athletes who moonlight as cabaret performers, roadies and cleaners. You won't get the polish of Cirque, but you'll get a rough diamond with plenty of heart.

#child_friendly
#circus
#family
#festivals
#inner_south
#south_yarra
#october
!date 03/10/2018 -- 21/10/2018
%wnmelbourne