By Jennifer Beasley.
SPECTACULAR!
Gravity & Other Myths present their latest jaw-dropping circus act, Ten Thousand Hours, to the Playhouse at The Melbourne Arts Centre.
At a frantic 60 minutes, this fast paced, strikingly visual and fear-inducing performance will make you gasp and shudder as the 9 acrobats test and then extend the limits of human endurance with this performance.
Directed by Lachlan Binns, with Associate Director Darcy Grant, Ten Thousand Hours has won at both the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals. Having toured 46 countries for sold-out performances, this family friendly show WILL delight all ages.
The name is based on Malcolm Gladwell’s concept that it takes 10,000 hours, which equates to 20 hours a week for 10 years, to develop mastery. Considering the effort that is put into elite physical professions such as tennis, dancing, swimming and gymnastics (on average 26 hours a week for my kids, as I suffered through the exhaustion as a parent supporting two high performance children, one a dancer and the other a swimmer) I think that the parents of the acrobats need top billing! Jokes aside all praise to this show. The physical mastery is evident not only by the performer’s feats but their musculature as well. And they do everything smiling, while landing somersaults as if they were as light as a feather.
Backed by a towering clock face with a digital ‘count-down’ which is really there to add mood lighting as supplied by Chris Petredis, and is also a clever visual aid for intensity, the pumping soundtrack by Nick Martyn and Shenzo Gregorio, with Nick Martyn at the rear of the stage operating the live music set, this really heightens the circus acts, with appropriate changes of tempo depending on the acrobatic pacing by the acrobats.
The premise, a training gym, and lovely costumes by Olivia Zanchetta of duck egg blue and dove grey, is perfect to display the talents of this flexible troupe. A tension inducing segment to demonstrate how easy mistakes can be made, foreshadows the fear that grips my lower segment as the 3 female acrobats are THROWN around like rag dolls – and they are still smiling! And sweat free. How? I felt beads running down my spine and then they launch into another terror inducing trick with 3 people standing walks, and, and, (gasp) no time to recover from that but it’s straight into flips, spins and contortions that I didn’t know were possible.
There is also audience involvement, something I haven’t seen at a circus act before. Very funny and the kids in the audience loved it!
Amazing displays of strength and agility brought frequent applause, and I found my notes were a mess as I could not take my eyes off the acrobats.
This is truly astounding, and the greatest compliment came at the end with a standing ovation.
Says it all, doesn’t it?
Do NOT miss this one!
Gravity & Other Myths: Ten Thousand Hours playing at 7:00 pm at The Playhouse at The Arts Centre Melbourne until 25th January, 2026.
Image: Darcy Grant
