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Les P’tits Bras at Out There Festival

Triplette

Monday 24 September 2012 , by Richard Roberts

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

Trapeze artists Chouchou and Zouzou take you back to the world of their grandparents, re-creating the show that “Mammi” and “Pappi” performed in 1937. They set the scene, with period costume, trad. Jazz, and an antique trapeze structure seven metres high.

Dazzling acrobatics and trapeze routines are centre stage, but Zouzou has brought her hapless, over-enthusiastic brother Alfred along to help. With Chaplinesque characterisation and timing, Alfred is often to be found dangling precariously from the structure by one leg and in need of rescue just before, or during, Zouzou and Chouchou’s trapeze double acts.

Suspended from a giant bungee cord, Zouzou makes an exceptionally graceful and aerobatic Odette in a short excerpt from Swan Lake, whilst Chouchou vies with Alfred (now on a unicycle) to be her partner. But family tensions soon come to the surface, and it’s not long before Zouzou is swinging out of control and knocking the boys down like skittles. They take their revenge by catapulting her high above the audience, then leaving her dangling like a broken puppet whilst they take a bow.

The comedy is only put on hold for the climax of the show, when Zouzou performs some truly breath-taking aerial tricks and transfers on the high trapeze. Nail-biting stuff, all flawlessly executed.

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