Each pose, performance, and acrobatic flight across the AU Room stage and through the air invites interpretation.Photo by Still Harper AU Room, a new immersive theatrical production, brings aerial work, acrobatics, contemporary choreography, original music, and LED visuals to Pullman Yards. The show is created and produced by Polina Volchek, a former professional rhythmic gymnast and Cirque du Soleil soloist and founder of performance company Pink Puma. Bucket Listers, an events platform that presents ticketed experiences in cities across the country, is partnering with Pink Puma and Pullman Yards on the Atlanta run. Volchek has built a career translating athletic precision into theatrical spectacle—telling stories not through dialogue, but through bodies in motion. For AU Room, she turns to gold as both visual motif and metaphor, using it to explore power, beauty, time, ambition, and what people value most. The Atlanta production expands on the show’s San Francisco debut with new props, original apparatuses, and a larger venue chosen for its aerial capabilities. The show makes its Atlanta premiere at Pullman Yards on August 27 and is scheduled to run through October 11, with performances Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., and Sundays at 6 p.m. The production is recommended for guests 12 and older. Tickets cost $54 to $129 with the premium levels including one beverage. Ahead of the opening, Volchek talked about the show’s gold-themed acts, the athletic background that shaped her approach, and why she hopes Atlanta audiences leave thinking about their own definition of gold. Combining aerial art, burlesque, contortion, cabaret, dance, and acrobatics, the performers’ bodies intertwine.Photo by Still Harper Why build an entire show around gold? Throughout my career, I’ve been creating pieces, acts, and scenes influenced by gold. When we had enough material and were ready to bring something new to the stage, we decided that a gold show would be unique and special. I’ve never seen any shows fully dedicated to the metal and the way people are obsessed with it. What does gold represent in the show? We tell multiple stories through our performances. For some, gold can be metal. For some, gold can be a crown, power, maybe the full kingdom or territory. Gold may be beauty. Gold is a natural resource. For most of us, gold is time. We approach gold as the highest value we put into a variety of things. What should audiences expect to see onstage? It is a fully choreographed routine. Most acts feature gymnastics, aerial, acro, and contemporary skills onstage. Some scenes are group pieces, and some are solo or duo pieces, but each tells a story. We are telling the story through our bodies and through our approach to this idea of gold. Displaying the wonders of the human body, the performers are at once fluid and statuesque.Photo by Still Harper Is the show built around one story, or a sequence of acts? It is a sequence of different acts, all connected in some way to gold, diamonds, and what holds the highest value for us. Each act has its own story—roughly 16 smaller stories performed by seven people—so every performer carries more than one piece. There is not one single solid storyline, but there is a philosophical arc. Audiences move through different ideas of gold: gold as power, gold as beauty, gold as a natural resource, and gold as time, which can slip through our fingers like sand. By the end, the show builds toward a large aerial chandelier piece that brings nearly the full cast together on a huge gold apparatus. How does your background as a rhythmic gymnast and Cirque du Soleil performer shape AU Room? I trained and competed professionally in rhythmic gymnastics for 10 years, and when that career ended, the Cirque world opened its doors for me. Cirque du Soleil taught me how to explain a vision artistically through human abilities and human bodies—how to tell stories without words, and how to show meaning through movement instead of saying it. With AU Room, all that comes together: the discipline, patience, persistence, hard work and the idea that the trained human body can become something like a diamond. If you are dedicated to your craft, you can do magic onstage and share that magic with the audience. What do you hope people take away from AU Room? We want them to reevaluate their purposes in life and understand what’s truly important. Where the show leads is finding what’s important for you. What does gold mean particularly for you: not for your family, not for your king, not for your country, but for yourself. Have you done enough to pursue these goals? What’s next for Pink Puma in Atlanta? We are working on a residency, so once AU Room is finished here, we’ll figure out the next city for this event. We will also continue in Atlanta with a Halloween show, followed by Vertical Show, and a Christmas special event that we will produce in collaboration with Pullman Yards. Each act invites the imagination to go wild.Photo by Still Harper The post Polina Volchek on bringing AU Room to Pullman Yards appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. ...read more read less