Welcome to the Crazy Life as Loca Vida Hits the Spiegeltent Newcastle Stage
- Liane Morris
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
There is something about stepping through the velvet curtains of a Spiegeltent Newcastle that changes the rules. The outside world seems to disappear. The lights dim, the mirrors catch the glow, the stage is suddenly close enough to touch, and the audience finds itself not simply watching a show but becoming part of the atmosphere.
This September, that atmosphere is about to get a whole lot wilder.
Loca Vida, the newest cabaret-circus spectacular from internationally acclaimed Australian company Strut & Fret, arrives at The Spiegeltent in Civic Park from 4 September to 4 October, bringing a hand-picked international cast, jaw-dropping circus, high-energy choreography, comedy, music, and more than a little old-school showbiz glamour.
For Melanie Hawkins, who is both a performer and one of the show's five choreographers, the Spiegeltent is central to what makes the experience so different.
“It's somehow intimate and grand at the same time,” she says.
Unlike a traditional theatre, where hundreds or even thousands of people face the stage, Loca Vida is performed in the round, with the audience surrounding the action.
“You've got 500 people in the audience, all in a circle with mirrors so everyone is looking at each other,” Hawkins explains.
“Not only does this intimate environment enable performers to connect with their audience, but it creates a kind of collective energy. Audience members see not only the show in front of them but also the reactions of the audience members around them.”
It is a very different proposition to musical theatre, a world Hawkins knows intimately. Her credits include the original Australian cast of Wicked, Saturday Night Fever, Strictly Ballroom, Hugh Jackman's Broadway to Oz and the world premiere of King Kong Live on Stage.
But in 2019, Strut & Fret founder Scott Maidment approached her and, as she puts it, she ‘ran away to the circus’.
Four Strut & Fret productions later, she remains firmly hooked.
The difference is not simply that there is more circus involved. Artists have a much greater creative role in shaping the work itself.
For Loca Vida, Hawkins is one of five choreographers, alongside Los Angeles-based Kevin Maher, Barcelona's Fidel Buika, and Australian choreographers Stephen Tannos and Yvette Lee.
It's an unusually dance-heavy production for Strut & Fret, with choreography developed across continents.
“It's the first time we've had five choreographers on a show,” says Strut & Fret Senior Creative Producer Jess Copas.
Maher, whose international credits include choreography and creative direction for Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Ricky Martin, worked with Hawkins in Los Angeles, where she learned the show's choreography before returning to Australia as Dance Captain to teach the rest of the cast.
The result is a production that is relentlessly energetic and distinctly ensemble-driven.
“Most of the cast are on stage most of the time,” says Hawkins. “It's a real ensemble show.”
And there is a lot happening.
“Circus, cabaret, singing, aerial and lots of comedy,” she says. “This show is very funny.”
Beneath the spectacle is a story inspired by vintage Hollywood, following performers who emerge onto a rooftop in pursuit of their dreams. The title Loca Vida translates roughly as “crazy life” and aptly describes the lives of artists chasing those dreams.
“There is a slight narrative thread beneath the surface as you follow these young performers along the journey of their crazy life,” Hawkins says.
The cast is genuinely international, bringing together performers from Australia, Cuba, Spain and the USA, with backgrounds spanning circus, burlesque, musical theatre and dance.
Among them are Cuban acrobatic duo Eben-Ezer, formed by graduates of Cuba's prestigious National Circus School.
Their act is one of the moments Copas is most excited for Newcastle audiences to see.
The pair hold a Guinness World Record for a remarkable feat in which Nardelys Jiménez performs a ballet full-pointe sequence on Rey David's head.
It sounds like the kind of moment that should be accompanied by thunderous applause. Instead, Copas says, the entire tent falls silent.
“It's a moment of calm and focus in the show amongst the rest of the chaos,” she says. “The whole tent is simply in awe.”
Copas describes Loca Vida as the biggest production Strut & Fret has created, with a huge technical component and a set that transforms during the performance.
“The whole stage moves,” she says. “It's a real spectacle.”
Hawkins agrees, teasing “some very cool additions to the set” that audiences will have to discover for themselves.
“About halfway through the show, the design changes and it just takes everything to another level,” she says. “It's the biggest and most technical set we've ever done.”
That combination of spectacle and intimacy makes Loca Vida a natural fit for the Spiegeltent and for Newcastle's New Annual festival.
The production is one of the headline shows of the sixth edition of New Annual, the City of Newcastle's flagship arts festival, which runs from September 25 to October 4 and transforms the city's beaches, ocean baths, parks and other civic spaces into stages for performance.
“Part of the magic of New Annual is the way in which it takes art to the audiences, reinventing the city's civic and coastal spaces into platforms for performance,” says Festival Director Tory Loudon.
For audiences, Loca Vida offers a different kind of night out: part circus, part cabaret, part concert and part theatrical party, all wrapped inside one of Newcastle's most atmospheric temporary venues.
And if Hawkins is right, once the show begins there won't be much opportunity to catch your breath.
“Once the train leaves the station, there are no stops,” she says. “It's like a bull out of the gate.”
Exactly what that means, she adds, will only become clear once audiences see the show.
Perhaps that is the best way to approach Loca Vida: leave expectations at the door, step through the velvet curtains and surrender to the crazy life.
Loca Vida runs at The Spiegeltent, Civic Park, Newcastle, from September 4 to October 4, 2026. It is part of the 2026 New Annual festival, running September 25 to October 4. Tickets are on sale now at Spiegeltent Newcastle.
Source: intouch Magazine, Issue #122, Spring 2026, pp. 22–23.
