Animals and acrobats

We both had this Friday off and so decided to take the bikes out to Werribee, a suburb about 45 minutes by train southwest of Melbourne. From the station we cycled about 5 miles to Werribee Open Range Zoo, a place that stylises itself as a piece of Africa outside of Africa. They have lions, hippo, rhinos, giraffes, zebra and... meerkats. A safari tour brought us around the enclosure but of course the flipside of being able to observe animals in their (simulated) natural habitat is that you don't get particularly close to them. Still Cass was able to tackle her avian aversion and bravely eye-balled an emu until he scurried off and also showed great composure when approached by a lioness. A lioness suffering from sun-stroke, but a lioness nonetheless.

Despite their diminutive status, the meerkats actually proved the best value for money. Their enclosure spans the entire length of the restaurant window, so you can simply sit inside and watch them scurrying around. Cute and all as they seem, a troupe can apparently rip a tiger snake to shreds within minutes and will often devour birds stunned from flying into the window of their enclosure.

As mentioned, there is always some sort of festival or event going on in Melbourne and this weekend was no exception with not one or two, but three different events overlapping. This week Melbourne was playing host to an Food and Wine festival and a Jazz festival and but perhaps the most high profile event was the FINA championships. Not sure what that's supposed to stand for but it's all about swimming at any rate. Anyway, never one to miss an opportunity for festivities, Melbourne had a whole weekend packed with various shows, concerts, circus acts, puppet shows and general bizarre behaviour in Federation Square and in Birrarung Park down by the banks of the Yarra river. Quite what any of it had to do with swimming is anyone's guess but the upshot was that there was plenty of things to see this weekend.

There were several highlights including a french orchestral group called Ulik and le SNOB. Dressed in long black clerical robes the members glided around the riverside terrace on hidden wheels (possibly Segways) playing various compositions by Philip Glass, Michael Nyman and others. To add to the generally bizarre look of the set, each of the members had some kind of gas lamp attached to a wire suspended over his head which was lit by the "prioress" of the outfit. It sounds weird, and it was weird, but also strangely beautiful.

Over on the circus rig, two groups of acrobats did two different circus routines. The first was called "Dislocate," although for reasons that will become obvious in a moment, that might have been a better name for the second group. Dislocate comprised of three members, two men and a woman, who tumbled, stood on each other, did pratfalls, trapeze and other high-flying feats. They were clowns as well as acrobats, in that they made it look like their amazing stunts were all almost by accident. They squabbled and kicked at each other, falling in a way that (I have to assume) didn't hurt them but looked very impressive indeed. One of them swung on a rope suspended 30 feet in the air. In mid swing he slid down to hang only by his feet to gasps and screams of the audience. The woman climbed up and down two hanging pieces of fabric, twisting and spinning artfully.

The second troupe (for acrobats, like meerkats, come in troupes) was called "Circa: 31 Acts in 30 Minutes." It does exactly what it says on the tin - they raced against the clock to perform 31 different circus acts. Some were basic circus staples - juggling, trapeze, hoop-jumping. Some were much more quirky - two of them raced against each other to remove their underwear without removing any other item of clothing. Some were very cringe-inducing - two of the performers had double-jointed shoulders. One put his hands on a bench and then walked through them, causing his arms to pop out and then back into position. The other pulled his arm out of its socket and put it behind his head so that it was parallel with the other arm.

We saw their show twice, and the second show was "46 Acts in 45 Minutes." During their 30-minute show they nearly ran out of time, and had to do four acts in the final eleven seconds, resulting in one juggling while a second spun by her neck and the third juggled upside-down through his legs. The third then threw a ball at the juggler and followed it up instantly with a ringtoss that landed a ring on each of their necks for the grand finale. It was a very impressive display, and they made their time (just). The 45 minute show was a little more relaxed (as relaxed as you can be when you're juggling knives and racing against the clock). They managed to get all of their acts in singly, and we could see the final acts individually. They were actually more impressive when executed as they should be, though the countdown frenzy of the 30-minute show was also exciting.

In and around these more traditional acts, various roving performers were doing their very best to up the overall weird quotient. People dressed in blue lycra with shark fins stuck to their heads marched around for no apparent reason as did three bouncers on stilts and two huge puppet creatures in a cart. Among the unique and wonderful performances, Strange Fruit rated. 6 dancers were attached to 20 foot poles by their waists and from this height performed quite an elegantly choreographed "waterdance."

After dark, events got more creative still. In a couple of sections, video footage of human faces was projected onto the trees that skirted the park in an installation termed "Humanature". The wind rustling through the leaves brought the features to life in a most peculiar way.
On a barge situated in the Yarra itself a cellist (for want of a better term) played some bizarre type of instrument that appeared to be connected to gas flumes behind him. With every chord he struck and jet of flame lept into the night sky. When he got into full swing the flames raged all about him and he appeared as some demon musician playing in the depths of some apocalyptic inferno. It was truly mesmerising effect.