In a combination of cabaret, burlesque, circus and dance, Natives Go Wild is a showcase of eclectic talent, with a sucker punch theme. A celebration of diverse performance and cultural heritage, it considers the fate of the Indigenous people who have historically been involved in the circus – Barnum & Bailey, and beyond – and asks the audience: is this an entertainment of exploitation?

Audiences used to this kind of offering – particularly cabaret – know that a through-theme is most times tenuous: a show’s success tends to be more about the mix of talents, personalities and spectacle. But peppered throughout Natives Go Wild is a mocking and deconstructing of racial stereotypes, a pronouncement of identity, and a celebration of enduring cultural connections.

Conceived and written by Rhoda Roberts and directed by Chelsea McGuffin, the six performers complement each other through their contrast. The role of ringmaster is played with savvy and wit by Mika Haka, a Māori entertainer. In wondrous costuming – think fishnets, corsets, headpieces – he is protagonist and provocateur, and at one point performs a powerful haka in extraordinarily high heels.

Josephine Mailisi as ‘the Fijian mermaid’. Photograph: Anna Kucera

The Aboriginal (Mununjali) circus performer Beau James plays a whip-lashing “brown clown”. In one of the show’s most poignant moments, he escapes from a straitjacket as the historic legislation that regulated the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia is read out over the speaker – and his burlesque performance risks stealing the show.

Waangenga Blanco, a Mer Island performer, returns to this medium after a season of the cabaret Pigalle at Sydney festival, and a long tenure as a former dancer with the Bangarra Dance Theatre. His physicality and comic timing weave a graceful visual thread through the show – a counterpart to the high-energy, rambunctious Sameula Taukave. Taukave – also known as Skillz – is a Fijian musician and performer from the island of Rotuma, who can move from cultural caricature to physically-commanding dignity in a flash.

Seini Taumoepeau, a Tongan performance artist better known as SistaNative, appears as the bearded lady – and her singing draws magical breaths into the show. The Niuean aerial contortionist Josephine Mailisi is part-acrobatic, part-gymnast, as she challenges the particular stereotyping and fetishisation of Indigenous women – the exotic “dusky maiden”, and the Fijian mermaid.

‘Is this an entertainment of exploitation?’: Beau James, Samuela Taukave and Josephine Mailisi in Natives Go Wild. Photograph: Anna Kucera

These performers inhabit the little-known stories of the Indigenous performers exploited by this world. Most shocking are the almost-lost histories of Indigenous people who were kidnapped from Australia and the Pacific to be shown as sideshow curiosities. The “Aboriginal Cannibal Boomerang Throwers” were kidnapped from Hinchinbrook and Palm islands by an agent of PT Barnum – the founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which became known as The Greatest Show on Earth. One, a man named “Tambo”, would die of pneumonia within a year; he was refused the customary death rituals of his culture, and embalmed and displayed as a sideshow attraction instead. In displays that were little different to the caging of animals, people were also kidnapped from Fiji to be shown as “cannibals” and savages – or noble savages – alongside conjoined twins, bearded ladies and other “curiosities”.

These stories of the “human zoo” unmask the barbarity of the human trafficking, and the tragedy of dislocation from family and place. But they also call attention to the Eurocentric arrogance of collecting people and shaping them into curiosities in order to satiate a paying audience by feeding into their misguided feelings of racial superiority.

Waangenga Blanco, a former dancer at Bangarra, returns to the variety show genre after a season of Pigalle. Photograph: Anna Kucera

Other stories are more celebratory. Con Colleano (played by Blanco), known as the Wizard of the Wire, became one of the highest-earning performers in the world – although he had to reinvent himself as Spanish to avoid the legislative constraints of being Aboriginal while performing in Australia. William “Nugget” Jones (Jones) was removed from his parents as a child but became an acrobat who ended up owning his own circus. While both had to cater to the prejudices of their audiences, circus offered self-expression and escape.

Within this uncovered history, and against the backdrop of deep tragedy, the stories of Indigenous circus performers from Australia and the Pacific reveal a potent mix of suffering and exploitation, but also resilience, adaptability and triumph. Antiquated stereotypes and perceptions are challenged, and space is reclaimed for the expression of identity and sovereignty over one’s own body and image.

With only four weeks of rehearsal, Natives Go Wild is not yet the super-polished, super-technical circus one might expect to see at the Opera House. But in a show that could easily descend into a didactic lesson on racial politics, the mix of humour, celebration and cultural pride results in joyous spectacle with intelligence and bite.

• Natives Go Wild runs at Sydney Opera House until 27 October

