Busk a move

BY ALICE COWDREY

The buskers are back with the return of Nelson's annual busking and street theatre festival next week. Alice Cowdrey reports.

A circus adventure featuring the antics of a group of intrepid explorers, including a brash harlot, will create a world of disorder, magic and death-defying stunts during a spectacular festival in Nelson next week.

The dazzling show, inspired by New Zealand's sea-faring ancestors and identity as an island nation, is called The Navigator and is part of the Buskerburgoo Buskers and Street Theatre Series which will transform the top of Trafalgar Street for four days from next Thursday.

Created by Wellington's Fuse Circus, The Navigator is dramatic and has some of the most talented circus performers in the country, says circus founder, director and performer Tom Beauchamp.

Performers dangle from ropes, climb to dizzying heights, throw themselves into the air and perform slapstick comedy.

"Theatrically, my character is a dodgy sort of smuggler stowaway on the ship. All of us have different sorts of characters. There is a cabin boy who ends up being in charge of the ship, and becomes a default captain.

"There's a tea-drinking kind of posh English lady and her sidekick sister who ends up taking charge during the course of the show.

"It's very much not just a straight circus show, but we are integrating theatrics into the whole thing," Beauchamp says.

The circus troupe of five first performed the show at the World Buskers Festival in Christchurch last year, where it won the people's choice award. It has returned reworked and developed, says Beauchamp, who first became interested in the world of circus when he visited London.

After coming back to New Zealand and studying circus, he started up Fuse Circus. "It's just awesome stuff to do and watch. I loved watching it when I saw shows overseas, I had never really been exposed to contemporary circus in New Zealand – there certainly wasn't very much of it.

"The industry is starting to get more popular now."

Although the show is quite different to your usual busking acts, the performers still make their wages "off the hat" and don't get paid to perform at festivals.

"So it's very much something unique – people's generosity is how we survive and eat and all that sort of stuff," he says.

For the past 14 years, Nelson's buskers festival was organised by the late Kim Merry. This year, Wellington's Chris Morley-Hall is taking over the reins.

He brings plenty of experience, having run Wellington's Cuba Street Carnival for the past 10 years, building it into a hugely successful event which draws 150,000 spectators.

Morley-Hall, who used to be a busker himself, says bringing the festival's acts into one area will create more of a party atmosphere, with non-stop entertainment from 11am to midnight on two of the festival days.

The licensed area will have room for about 2000 onlookers and will be "dressed up" with inflatable stars and flags to create a festive atmosphere.

Morley-Hall says the calibre of entertainment is high, featuring performers such as Anthony Livingspace and the award-winning magician, comedian and prankster Nick Nickolas, who both have 25 years' experience in the industry.

From Britain will be Frances Hooper, a clown who combines classic clowning, ridiculous routines, comedy and eccentric dance, as well as Herbie Treehead.

Treehead mixes his clowning style with lots of audience interaction – creating large-scale theatre out of a suitcase including sword fights, horse races and even a bit of Jurassic Park, all set to music, mime and shouting.

From Wellington will be Cir Que De Salon – an interactive show creating living sculptures through hair and makeup, using people from the audience as canvases.

The festival also has a new name this year. Morley-Hall dreamt it up after discovering burgoo (the "most ridiculous word", the name of the porridge served on Lord Nelson's ships) on a website.

The buskerburgoo "is about bringing creativity into the street, it's a totally different environment and platform for presenting things".

"You get a really broad range of audience, and performers who really have to work to keep you there, as opposed to theatre".

The festival will again present a Buskers Go Bad show which will be performed on the Friday and Saturday nights.

The area will be secured for two nights for the late-night circus cabaret which will feature live music, gutter humour and even an out-of-control clown.

The festival will also feature Wellington gypsy band Niko Ne Zna and winds up on with the Buskers' Lament on Sunday night – the family-friendly finale where the buskers will bring out some hidden gems to say thanks to Nelson.

• Buskerburgoo runs from Thursday, February 4 until Sunday, February 7. See summerfestival.nelsoncitycouncil.co.nz for more.

- © Fairfax NZ News