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Waterlitz at Brighton Festival

Thursday 7 June 2012 , by Shelley Bennett

All the versions of this article: [English] [français]

On 26th May 2012, the eccentric French company Générik Vapeur ended the Brighton Festival with its new creation Waterlitz. After going to the Z’Arts Up Festival at Béthune two weeks earlier, the Omni Idéal X this time proudly stood on the Brighton seafront dominating the city and the neighbourhood. Approximately 10 000 spectators gathered on the beach and the pier, attracted by the impressive giant of steel.

Shelley Bennett, the Brighton Festival’s Press and PR Manager gives us her impressions of the show :

Waterlitz was presented during Brighton Festival 2012 at Black Rock which is on the sea-front. The performance began with a pilgrimage of around 10-12,000 walking along the seafront at night being hailed by the 30-ton figure – made from eight metal shipping containers – emitting a noise like something from War of the Worlds. The audience was then transfixed by a wonderful show with such diversity and variety of content that it’s difficult to know where to start in describing it! We watched mesmerised as aerialists and acrobats climbed and swung about the giant structure, a live band accompanied and introduced various elements of the night – there was even a bagpipe player in a crane – as we moved through an evening that encompassed everything from dinosaurs to the titanic to Napoleon being weed on to being offered tea and squeaky frogs! Rapturous applause lasted for a long time when the performance finally ended and certainly this is a show that won’t be forgotten.

Photo credits : Liz Arthur Johnson

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