The Star: January 18, 2024
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong> Thursday <strong>January</strong> <strong>18</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
6<br />
NEWS<br />
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
Buskers festival is back with fresh<br />
GAKU IMPRESSED judges in<br />
Australia and Spain before a<br />
live audience, and now<br />
Christchurch festival-goers can<br />
decide whether the juggling<br />
drummer has talent.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese performer is<br />
among first-time international<br />
acts performing at the 31st<br />
edition of the Bread and Circus<br />
World Buskers Festival, which<br />
opens at a range of inner-city<br />
venues tomorrow.<br />
Billed as the world’s only<br />
juggling drum busker, GAKU’s<br />
fusion of dexterity and<br />
percussion gained even more<br />
prominence when he was an<br />
entrant in Australia’s Got Talent<br />
in 2022 and then the Spanish<br />
equivalent last year.<br />
GAKU, who has more than<br />
four million followers on TikTok,<br />
is joined by an American<br />
contortionist, a British trick<br />
cyclist, a two-man South<br />
American “freak show” and<br />
a dapper South Korean, who<br />
harks back to the halcyon days<br />
of Music Hall, in the contingent<br />
of overseas-based entertainers<br />
making their Christchurch<br />
debuts.<br />
Pint-sized contortionist Leah<br />
Orleans, her skills honed by<br />
coaches at Ringling Bros and<br />
Barnum & Bailey Circus and<br />
Cirque du Soleil, brings her Tiny<br />
Big Girl! Show, a captivating<br />
blend of flexibility, acrobatics and<br />
clowning from Chicago.<br />
A performer for 15 years,<br />
following a family tradition,<br />
Orleans strives to combine<br />
classical technique with modern<br />
humour.<br />
Hilarity also underpins Wire<br />
Attire, the stunt unicyclist Sam<br />
Goodburn, a Brit whose biscuitthemed<br />
and balance on a tight<br />
wire has transported him from<br />
the famed Edinburgh Fringe<br />
Festival to Japanese schools and a<br />
Central American orphanage in<br />
Nicaragua.<br />
GLOBAL ATTRACTIONS: Buskers from diverse backgrounds<br />
unite in a common goal to entertain at the Bread and<br />
Circus World Buskers Festival as GAKU <strong>The</strong> Juggling<br />
Drummer (left), Estupida Compania (above) and Leah<br />
Orleans bring their acts to Christchurch for the first time.<br />
PHOTO: AMANDA TIPTON<br />
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