Les Echos29 September 2014
Cirque Plume defies the test of time
Tempus fugit and you don’t see it passing. The time can be that of an autistic adventure they based in humanity, dreams that are never too big, poetic and acrobatic excursions: Cirque Plume has been on the road for 30 years and is now showing at Paris, la Villette - where it is “alive and well” as the rockers say … It also took some time to prepare the show: the tenth, celebrating the 30th anniversary, run in on a one year tour. So what about this "Tempus fugit? " question mark? It stands for "a trip on the lost path" - a fleeting moment between the tick and the tock of a clock. This heartfelt event at the l’espace Chapiteaux takes place in a flash, a flash of laughter and emotions mingled together. The show makes you feel good, enthralled with this very short moment of suspended happiness.
A shared celebration
The show has nostalgia too, but in small doses… Staged by the great Circus impresario, crowned with his three feathers, Bernard Kudlak, refers tenderly to the past, but without dwelling on it. The show makes room for joy, youth, vagabond music and the rough cast voice of Bernard Shick. The circus makes no pretense at sophisticated concepts: Cirque Plume is there to celebrate and have us share the celebrations. The numbers follow one another in an impossible rhythm, succeeding an almost perfect balance between skilled acrobatics, poetic invention and a musical trance.
Spectators are enticed by the sleepwalking dance (slow then possessed) by Molly Saudek; stunned by the untamed acrobatics and diabolic circles traced by the "roue Cyr" wheel with Maxime Pythoud; made to laugh to the pit of their stomachs by the clownish jokes of Mick Holbesque. There is an abundance of funny and fantastic images: an exploding floor, a red Sun which becomes a giant balloon then shrinks to land on the nose of a clown … right to the very last scene where glass balls waltz in the dark, like crystal planets. Cirque Plume has not returned its back on its traveling background and its ready-made ambience: the decor is made of bits and pieces (cans, boxes, a homemade wind tunnel), costumes that look like castoffs. But despite its easy-going and rough made aspects, the show is set up with enormous precision.
The atmosphere is more rock ’n roll than it is hippie: between combo and return band, the circus artists-musicians invent their own had the sound (a mix of blues, pop, folk, funk, world), ending with this "batucada" as an overwhelming sendoff, bringing the public to their feet. In 30 years, the wandering Circus has lost any feathers and has not put on any weight. Tempus fugit ? You might not think so.
Philippe CHEVILLEY