The French cultural festival offers more 'nouveau cirque' marvels with an acrobatic-acid jazz showdown.

Stéphane Négrin suggested back in 2004 that organisers of the annual "La Fête" bring nouveau cirque - new circus - to Bangkok, but was met with hesitation.

"At first the embassy said, 'No, there's no performance tradition here, so it wouldn't interest anyone,'" says Négrin, who four years ago was working at CulturesFrance in Paris. "My answer was that it's not traditional circus - there were no animals, but  a DJ. Cie AOC’s 'La Syncope du 7' turned out to be a big success, and every year since they've continued to bring in nouveau cirque companies [Cie 111, Cie W, and Cie 9.81]," says Negrin, now France's cultural attache in Bangkok.

France has more than 600 new circus companies performing in theatres, not tents, and they deliver messages about life rather than just showcasing physical talent. It's for adults too, not just for kids.

Chinese acrobatics and acid jazz

Representing this significant genre in Bangkok this month is the O Ultimo Momento company.

Their "Peut-être" is a duet between Chinese pole acrobat Joao Paulo P Dos Santos and acid-jazz musician Guillaume Dutrieux. They both play with the concept of space boundaries; that is, what the audience, hearing acoustic and electronic music and seeing a fleeting body, assumes to be above or below, horizontal or vertical. As the audience is engulfed in sights and sounds, gravity appears inverted and the performers seem multiplied on the stage.

“There’s also a dialogue between the virtual and the real, as performers interact—and yet sometimes choose not to—with video images, and that idea resonates in the festival’s closing performance [Cie Montalvo-Hervieu’s “La Bossa Fataka de Rameau” on June 26 and 27]. It’s interesting to show people in Thailand that in France more and more we mix the virtual and the real, as well as different kinds of performance genres,” adds Négrin.

Apart from Bangkok, our neighbors in Manila, Ho Chi Minh, Hue, Hanoi, Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Bandung, and Vientianne are also being thrilled by this sure-to-be mesmerizing performance.

Xtra: Where are the lions?

>> Peut-être" is on Saturday and Sunday, June 14 and 15 at the King Power Complex's Aksra Theatre on Soi Rangnam near Victory Monument Skytrain station.

>> Tickets are Bt1,200 and Bt800 (Bt100 for students) at Thaiticketmajor.

>> Visit www.LaFete-Bangkok.com.

 written by Pawit Mahasarinand

published in Daily Xpress on Thursday, June 12, 2008

photo courtesy of the French Embassy in Thailand