Night Circus
Waikiki welcomes a spectacular new show: CabaRAE.
Waikiki welcomes a new showroom this summer—CabaRAE Random Acts of Entertainment at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa.
Anticipated to open in August, the brand new 10,000-square-foot showroom and cocktail lounge will feature 360-degree seating around a unique circular realm measuring 8 feet in diameter and 3 feet in height. Former Cirque du Soleil director Alan Goldberg has partnered with award-winning nightlife developers RMD Group to create this enthralling “cabariety” experience.
“It’s cabaret and variety melded together,” explains Goldberg on what audiences can expect to see. “The acts are very random. We have former Cirque du Soleil performers and people from circuses. There will be aerial artists, magic, comedy, acrobatics, live singing, acrobatic pole dancing, a hula hooping Elvis, a yodeling dominatrix and some other surprise acts.
“We have artists from all over the world, including Ukraine, Germany, Canada, Austria and Russia. The general plan is to keep everybody together for about a six-month run, and recast, in order to keep our local clientele coming back.”
Goldberg’s wife, Wanda Azzario-Goldberg, who serves as artistic coordinator, is also among the performers. Considered one of the best roller-skating acts in the world, she takes the stage with Jean Pierre, and together they’re known as the Skating Willers.
Another highlight is sure to be Duo MainTenanT featuring French gymnast and Olympic medalist Ludivine Furnon Perso with acrobatic partner Nicolas Besnard.
It’s an intimate setting, with the farthest seat from the stage at only 40 feet away. The room has 408 seats, but can hold 450 people allowing for some standing-room tickets to be sold.
Photos: Courtesy CabaRAE
There are 15 artists in the show, and approximately 12 acts in the two-hour show (including a 20-minute intermission), which runs Wednesday through Sunday nights. A preshow lounge area opens at 6 p.m., and curtains go up at 8 p.m. After the show, guests and the public are welcome to stay in the lounge, which is open from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Goldberg, who has performed with lions and tigers in the circus for 30 years, says he decided to move to Hawai‘i for his other passions in life: scuba diving, windsurfing, paragliding and hang gliding. Azzario-Goldberg, who is British, is a third generation Skating Willers performer. And while the pair has known each other for decades through the circus world, they reunited five years ago, got married on the North Shore of O‘ahu and immediately started planning CabaRAE.
“We found artists from all around the globe of this particular genre and we brought them together,” Goldberg says. “This is entertainment like it used to be in the ’40s and ’50s. It’s all about the performers. The closeness of the audience to what’s happening on stage … that’s been taken away with all the machines and automations of today.
“The first time they see it, they are gonna go, ‘Are you kidding? Really?’ And it’s over. So, it’s a show that in the past have brought people back over and over again.” ✖
Note: Artist line up is seasonal; acts will rotate in and out of the CabaRAE schedule as cast (talent) come in and out of Hawai’i
CabaRAE
Hilton Hawaiian Village [D:4 Waikiki Map]
(808) 354-0629
www.cabarae.com
