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The Mystery of NICK BEYELER Part Two

Spiegelworld’s “mystery man” provides answers…and yields more questions.

In Part One, we introduced you to ABSINTHE‘s Nick Beyeler. The stunningly handsome entertainer has traveled the world and seemingly dabbled in every art form…from multiple angles. Despite his global reach, very little is known about “The Man” himself.  Can VEGAS 411 discover who Nick Beyeler really is?

You studied ballet at an early age, then added martial arts…an unusual combination

It was the other way around! I started with martial arts at the age of three, and – while waiting for my sister’s ballet class to end next door – the dance teacher took me under her wing. While different in style, the principles of movement are the same—the beauty in efficiency and the rewards for constant dedication to working with your body. I’ve come to appreciate the various forms of workouts at an early age. Variety is the spice of life.

Beginning in the nineties, you represented Switzerland for several World Aerobics Championships. An unpredictable direction, considering what you’d done up to that point. 
Most elite competitors for Sports Aerobics come from an Olympic gymnastics background, while I’ve had to learn those skills on the go. My martial arts and dance background eventually became very useful and definitely helped me win Gold at the World Championships. The sport has evolved so much that the level of skill of today’s competitors is incredibly high. 

Some of your competition videos on YouTube are more than twenty-five years old, yet you look almost the same. Did you make a deal with the Devil?

Oh, thank you! I am actually feeling better now than then, more… at ease with myself, I guess. I’m good friends with my fellow competitors from that time, a lot of them are still performing on a World stage somewhere, doing great. The key being to never, ever, stop moving, obviously. I’m often on stage with performers half my age. They keep me going. My hope is to be the poster boy for inspired longevity within our fast-paced industry.
In 2013 you worked on a Bollywood action movie as a body double and stuntman. Tell us about that.
I’ve done stunts, body doubled and did the circus scenes for Academy Award winner Aamir Khan in Bollywood’s biggest action movie to date. DHOOM3 was partially filmed in Chicago, Switzerland, and India for Yash-Raj films.
Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif in DHOOM 3
Aamir Khan was fearless and quite frankly, extraordinary! I went back to India a couple of times for some reshoots of scenes. It’s always been a very warm welcome. 
Did you work on any other movies after DHOOM 3?

I love doing film, with the precision and perfection that is required. It’s also incredibly tiring. I’ve been quite fortunate with many TV projects that brought me all over the globe, from Thailand to Lebanon, Australia, and all over Europe, but my passion is definitely in live stage entertainment.

To feel that connection with a live audience. Being in the zone almost nightly, to entertain an audience, it gives me my kicks. I still have to pinch myself that I’m working at two of the hottest shows in Las Vegas: Absinthe and DiscoShow.

So, no more movies, but you ended up collaborating with James Cameron, the biggest film director in the world.
James Cameron endorsed getting my US Green card – as an “Alien with Extraordinary Abilities” (I always loved that term!). Incredibly generous coming from a very busy man who I admire. I’ve been in the creation cast for Cirque Du Soleil’s arena tour of Toruk: The First Flight, based on the Avatar universe. Toruk then won the Guinness World Record for the highest-grossing arena tour.
Photo by Erisson Lawrence/Cirque du Soleil
At that time, James Cameron was also in pre-production for the Avatar sequels at the studios of Lightstorm Entertainment. Witnessing his dedication to a creation was extremely fascinating. How can you possibly pull off something so extraordinary as Aliens, Terminator 2, or Avatar? The pressure! The vision! It’s beyond me. What a man!
One of your passions is art. The characters you create are unique and unusual, yet their personalities shine through…
The main inspiration for my artwork comes from within the entertainment industry. Twirling around a family of quirky characters with a seductive presence, flawed in many ways, confident in their wickedness, audacious in their ways.
My corporate background is in Graphic Design. Painting is another way of expression and creating. It started as a personal hobby many years ago and suddenly people started to get intrigued by it and I’m selling quite well.
You don’t just work with paint, but physical objects and computer software to create images with texture and a third dimension. It feels very…organic and alive.
My hope is that the viewer will be intrigued, fascinated, and, most importantly, surprised. Whether through means of paint on a canvas, digital art, or a live performance, the medium does not matter to me. There is always something that needs to be expressed, performed, and created. I hope I’ll always have a chance and opportunity to stay busy creating things.
Speaking of organic, that’s one of the terms you’ve used to describe the apparatus in your aerial tube act.
Exactly! Before working with the aerial tube, I’ve worked a lot with more traditional circus aerial apparatuses like vertical silks, straps, rope etc., where you learn to control and master the apparatus. The tube has a mind and character of its own. Depending on temperature and humidity, it flexes and stretches, becomes cooperative or stubborn.

The best way to deal with this is to accept it and roll with it. Surfing it like a wave and not getting irritated by having to adjust an expected outcome. As a competitive athlete and stage performer, I’ve been so trained to control the conditions to allow for perfection, it’s been fascinating to allow room for improvisation on a live stage.

So not only is it an organic experience, but it can be seen as a metaphor. What have people taken away from it?

It’s the most wonderful thing to me, getting messages from audiences sometimes weeks or months later, when I get contacted by total strangers, reaching out, wanting to know more about the act they’ve seen a while ago at Absinthe, starting a conversation about the meaning or symbolism behind it. It fascinates me.

There’s a disturbing beauty within the tube act that touches people. I applaud Spiegelworld’s daring choice to offer this dark element to a Las Vegas audience. It’s something fresh you don’t get to see anywhere else!

I’m sure you know that some people reference the tube in a “certain way” (a giant condom). I saw the performance as a representation of birth….working your way outward, becoming a living person once free.

See, I love this. Getting to know more about what an audience feels and experiences when watching our shows is pure joy. I’ve always been fascinated by the simplicity of this giant narrow transparent tube. It transforms a space. It’s confining, exposing, and protecting.

A lot of early inspiration on the visual side of things came from movies and TV, like David Lynch‘s Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic, the testing tubes in Aliens, Bladerunner‘s epic sets. These influenced the lighting designs and early sketches for my act.

Before we met tonight, I researched your background and career. There’s plenty to read and learn, yet I know almost nothing about you as a person. Who is Nick Beyeler?

Well, isn’t discovery and a sense of mystery part of the fun? Let’s just say that I’m someone who believes in living life as a work of art – sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes on stage…occasionally as a moving target on the fast lane. Loving life. If they want to know more, they’ll just have to keep watching.

You once received some sage advice from a beloved family member. Care to share?
I had the privilege of a heart-to-heart chat with my grandmother shortly before she passed away. Of the beautiful things she said, one in particular stuck with me: “Looking back at my life, I don’t have many regrets. Except…I should have worried less and danced more.” Words to live by.

Nick Beyer dances up a storm on various dates in Spiegelworld’s new DiscoShow. His aerial tube act performs regularly at ABSINTHE. You can reserve tickets for both productions by heading here.

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