Catch em if you can!

All the way from Quebec – although in this case, Quebec City rather than Montreal – come Flip Fabrique, with a feel-good street-wise circus show that gets down with the kids. There’s a bunch of friends reunited,  there’s beat-boxing, there’s trampolining, there’s big red bouncy balls, there’s chalking on walls., there’s camping chairs, and there’s ‘dancing slug’ sleeping bags – an ingenious take on what someone (somewhere away from this cheery teenager-y world) might describe as whole-body-mask performance. 

Most of the show is upbeat – I Like to Move It, Move It – with plenty of zippy juggling and hooping (I’m reminded of Circus Oz quite often in the frenetic cheeriness of the whole thing). There’s a fantastic diabolo act – one of the best I’ve seen – in the form of a kind of diabolo duel. But there are some moments of calm, including a stunning straps act to Cinematic Orchestra’s melancholic To Build a Home. There is also a very lovely clowning-morphs-into hand-to-hand scene that is funny and tender all at once. The trampoline-and-wall bounce-off finale is stunning. I start off a little resistant to the show’s vibe, but they win me over with their brilliant technique and charming stage characters.

The team of six – five men and a single jaunty female (Jade Dussault) who flies like an angel in the acro scenes, and is a great hula hooper – all have prestigious pedigrees, having between them chalked up work with all the Quebecois big names: Cirque du Soleil, Les Sept Doigts, and Cirque Eloize. Under the direction of founder-member Bruno Gagnon, the team have come together because they genuinely are a group of friends who wanted to be reunited. Hence the show. Here are a bunch of young adults who want to resurrect the art of play – to retain and celebrate all they loved best as children.

This is circus with a young heart. It’s clear that they are here to have fun, and the fun is infectious. You can’t help but love them.