Review: The Dream MENAGERIE at the Courier Mail SPIEGELTENT

I wasn’t sure how to write this review. Quite perplexed actually. Just not sure what I just saw. Was it a circus act? A vaudeville performance? A comical mystery?

Or was it just a dream?

I was attending the Dream Menagerie, a new act for the annual Brisbane festival, under the guise of the Courier Mail’s SPIEGELTENT (mirror tent) at the King George Square.

The Dream merchants in this act would like you to believe that what you are seeing is not real. You are in a dream or a trance like state. There are “acts” and these are shared between a ring master, a midget, a big wannabe soprano, a French illusionist and a couple of other characters. They all work together to create an atmosphere that is anything but normal. There is magic, there is singing, there are contortionist performances and there is a donkey.

The crowd favourite moment involved the midget, a bucket on a rope and lots of bubbles. You have to be there to experience it. It was magical.

Not sure if it is suitable for small children – not because of the acts themselves, but because of loud music and strobe lighting in a secluded space; considering that this show doesn’t start till 9 PM, the Brisbane Festival people don’t want to encourage children either. Which is a shame as the show is sure to delight kids of all ages (notwithstanding the loud music and strobe lightning).

The setting itself is quite spectacular. The Spiegeltent (mirror tent) is a work of art and if you happen to be in Brisbane city, stroll down to King George square to admire it and have a drink or two in the attached beer and wine garden (better still at night).

All the details

What is it? The Dream Menagerie – a combined comedy, circus and performance show.

How much? $42 for adults and $32 for kids.

Where? At the Courier Mail Spiegeltent in King George Square.

When? On now till Sep 24th at 9 PM. There is no show on Mondays.

CraftGossip attended the show courtesy of Brisbane Festival.

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When I knit socks (which sadly I have not done in a while; need to get a new pair on the needles soon!) I generally stick to pretty simple designs and colorwork that isn’t all that detailed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a fancy sock, I’m also just pretty lazy and I figure a project worked on size 0 or 1 US needles is going to take a long time even without the added work of intricate colorwork, so why make it more complicated?

But there are definitely socks out there I’d be willing to make an exception for, and I think Tangled Bliss by Annette Schleicher may just be one of them.

If you can’t tell from looking, this is decidedly an advanced knitting pattern. There’s brioche for the cuffs, complex looking colorwork done with the ladderback jacquard technique, multiple charts, and colors changing everywhere.

There are links to tutorials for all the special skills in the pattern, but still it would help to have a handle on these concepts before you get started.

The pattern uses three colors of light fingering weight yarn at a whopping 31 stitches per 4 inches/10 cm (that’s 7.75 stitches per inch/2.5 cm).

Would you believe me if I told you that this pattern was designed for a speed knitting contest? Speed would be the last thing on my mind.

But again, I think all the work for these fancy socks would be worth it. I love hoe the colorwork looks like an old tile floor, and think of the bragging rights when you tell people you made them yourself. (Though of course you did; have you ever seen store-bought socks that look anything like this?)

Best of all, this pattern is available for free on Ravelry, so there’s no reason not to give it a try if you’ve got the skills. If you do, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Annette Schleicher]

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