Hoop diver Nelson Smyles is all set to dazzle Sydney in Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia this November at The Entertainment Quarter
Life seems to have come full circle for Nelson Smyles. The circus performer, who grew up in Port Macquarie and is a former pupil of Neutral Bay Public School, has been in the Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil since 2017, but never performed in Australia.
The talented acrobat will get the opportunity to show off his hoop diving skills to friends and family when Cirque du Soleil performs its 10th show over 25 years in Australia this month.
Luzia leads audiences on a colourful journey through an ‘imaginary’ Mexico, complete with rain, desert and a smoky dance hall. “It’s perfect,” Nelson enthuses. “It’s so well executed in the sense of bringing Mexican culture to other parts of the world.
“It’s perfect for someone that might not get the chance to visit Mexico to get a real taste for it. You feel like you’re in it.”
Contortionist Aleksei Goloborodko will have you ‘holding your breath’
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia November 24 to February 9, 2025 The Big Top at The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park cirquedusoleil.com/Luzia
The performer started gymnastics aged just four, and used his love of movement to get a degree at the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne – yes, circus school is real! He specialised in hoop diving, clowning and group acrobatics, and was recruited before graduation by Cirque du Soleil for the Luzia show. “It’s such a beautiful place to work,” Nelson enthuses. “We get well looked after and as for all the places we get to visit! It’s unparalleled when it comes to having a job in this industry.”
In Luzia, Nelson is part of the hoop diving team, which does tricks dressed as hummingbirds which will leave you spellbound. Despite being 6’3, Nelson defies gravity and folds his body into hoops just 75 centimetres wide, jumping as high as his head for somersaults and flips through the circle.
For Luzia, just to keep the acrobats on their toes, Cirque du Soleil took the concept of a walking treadmill – designed to train horses – and decided to get the acrobats to do their jumps with the floor moving. “It’s just a bit tricky,” Nelson admits. “Normally for those kind of tumbling lines, you need about 10 metres of straight space. So it’s amazing to have an apparatus to let you do as much tumbling as you want on the spot. It’s a whole new realm of vocabulary when it comes to being an acrobat.
“Cirque is always pushing the boundaries when it comes to acrobatics, which is what you really want as a performer.”
Nelson and his team of hoop-diving hummingbirds represent the ‘fallen warrior’ in Mexican culture. “If you die a glorious death in battle in Mexican culture, you are reincarnated as a hummingbird. So we take that energy and give it all to the audience. It’s such an awesome first act to the show and it really brings you in. It’s amazing.”
Watching Nelson’s rehearsal posts for Luzia on Instagram, where the performers practise their incredible tricks, laughing and giving each other high fives, you get the impression it’s all play working for Cirque, which boasts a team of artists from 26 nationalities. “The hoop diving team, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had,” says Nelson. “I’m surrounded by people from all different cultures with the same level of passion and drive for their goals. And that’s a very safe and welcoming environment to have as much fun as you can.”
Nelson says the audience will be ‘blown away’ by all of the Cirque du Soleil acts, but one performer who will ‘definitely have you holding your breath’ is Russian contortionist Aleksei Goloborodko, who plays the ‘spirit guide’ in Luzia. Cirque du Soleil is ‘unparalleled to any other form of entertainment,’ Nelson says. “Soleil is at such a high level with everything that is used to take you out of your ‘everyday,’ and really fully immerse you into a whole new world.”