Tom Beauchamp is learning how to crack whips while tap dancing, for his latest show, Revolver.
“AS far as I know it’s a world premier. I’ve been cracking whips for a while and I did some basic tap about ten years ago, but I’m not naturally rhythmic. It’ll be interesting if nothing else,” he laughs.
In the show Beauchamp will also be performing “base on static trapeze” – which sees two people slipping, sliding and twisting around each other, while hanging from a stationary bar. “Base” means he’s the less slippery of the two.
This performance will be happening over the heads of lively, costumed, dancing club-goers, in Blair Street bar Estadio’s 11-metre tall main room. .
“We’ll use harnesses so people can’t drop on the audience. You want the image of risk, but you don’t wanna have to scrape people up off the floor,” he says.
Revolver takes some of its inspiration from big shows in Vegas, where half a dozen Cirque du Soleil shows are performed almost every night, and safety precautions are not so strongly enforced,
“It’s interesting to see what kind of stuff people get away with in Vegas. I went to one club night where this huge truss system came down from roof with a big flamethrower in the middle, and it would lower in and out through the night with performers bungy jumping off the sides over the audience.”
Others involve topless vampires taking on circus, and Cirque du Soleil’s O.
“The whole show is in and around a swimming pool. Performers come in and out of the water and ex-Olympians do high dives. It’s pretty incredible.”
Combining circus and club night may be commonplace in Vegas, but it’s still relatively new here, says Beauchamp, founder of Wellington company Fuse Circus.
“The circus industry in New Zealand is still very grassroots, it’s only been going for 10 or 15 years, but some of the kids in their teens now are getting to a level that’s much higher than ever before. We’re always slightly restricted by population here, but we’re into extreme sports, like chucking ourselves off things with bits of rubber bands strapped to us, and circus really seems to appeal to what Kiwis are about.”
“Somewhere like Sweden makes a good comparison. The country’s a bit out of the way, the weather’s shit, but it’s full of really nice people who drink a lot and make great circus.”
Beauchamp was born in Geraldine, and got caught up in circus and alternative cabaret while living in London. He returned to New Zealand, gained his masters in theatre direction at Toi Whakaari, and began Fuse Circus in 2005.
 “Certainly there hasn’t been much contemporary circus in NZ. Fuse is… creating an industry, pretty much from scratch. It is the means of creative expression for myself and others, it allows us to produce circus based work and to try make a living.”
The premier season of Revolver opens this week. The show’s centrepiece is a two and a half metre wide, hand-cranked, revolving stage. The theatrical part of the show will be staged “in the round”, with audience members seated in a circle surrounding the stage.  
“I’ve wanted to use a revolving stage for years. It presents interesting challenges - you’ve got to turn your focus so you’re not always showing your ass to one section of the crowd.”
Then the club will take over.
“It won’t be a case of ‘now the show’s over, here’s the after party’, they will morph into one another. It’ll start with the presented circus show, and people can eat and drink while it goes on, and then chairs will start to be cleared away and DJs will begin to take over, but the circus will continue on into the night, with acts happening in amongst the party,” says Beauchamp.
As DJ’s take the stage and the circus performers join audience members, encouraged to dress in costume, what starts as family-friendly fun slowly transforms to the kind of night you imagine ending in a drug-fuelled orgy.
“We live in hope. There’s certainly a lot of space for the after party to descend into hedonism and drug-fuelled orgies. We’re not supplying the drugs, though. That’s not our territory.”
Revolver, Estadio, May 13, June 10, July 8.