There’s a particular thrill in seeing the blue-and-white Big Top rise again at Flemington Racecourse, and Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza more than earns the anticipation. Returning to Melbourne after a season nearly a decade ago, the production runs under canvas at Flemington until 19 July and it announces itself, from the first beat of the live band, as Cirque stripped back to what made the company famous in the first place: real people doing genuinely unbelievable things.
Written and directed by David Shiner, Kooza is a deliberate return to old-world circus, the union of breathtaking acrobatics and the lost art of clowning. The slender narrative follows The Innocent, a naïve figure swept into a strange and colourful kingdom under the eye of an enigmatic Trickster, with the whole spectacle threaded through themes of fear, identity and power. But you don’t come to Kooza for plot. You come for the gasp, the collective intake of breath, when a performer commits to something that looks impossible and then, impossibly, lands it.
And land it they do, again and again. The now-legendary Wheel of Death is the show’s adrenaline centrepiece, two performers sprinting and leaping inside and atop a pair of rotating cages high above the ring, a sequence that had the audience around me physically flinching. Elsewhere there’s contortion, high-wire work and a chair-balancing act of almost meditative tension, all carried by a gloriously brassy live score and more than 175 lavish costumes. The clowning, often the weak link in big-scale circus, is here sharp and warmly silly, giving the daredevilry room to breathe.
At a brisk 125 minutes, Kooza never sags, and its appeal is genuinely broad – dazzling enough for first-timers, nostalgic enough for longtime devotees. This is Cirque at its most joyful and human, and a glorious reason to brave a Melbourne winter’s night. Catch it under the Big Top before it leaves town in July.
Kooza by Cirque du Soleil
Under the Big Top, Flemington Racecourse — 448 Epsom Road, Flemington VIC 3031
Showing now until 19 July 2026
For more information and to book visit cirquedusoleil.com
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