Est Républicain8 May 2004
Plume Takes the Plunge
Plic Ploc, Cirque Plume’s New Show, is Superb.
Special Previews at Salins les Bains (Jura) until May 16.
Daniel BORDUR
SALINS-LES BAINS.
Plic Ploc, Cirque Plume’s new show, is both enchanting and dazzling. The staging is dream-like and joyful. Shadows and light play off the transparency and opacity of the all-purpose canvases. The musicians are dancers, the dancers are acrobats, the acrobats are musicians, and everyone is a bit of a clown…
This is the real Cirque Plume, lyric and funny, inventive and touching.
But Plic Ploc is also different from the troupe’s other shows. Plume has enlarged its repertoire. New to the show are the humor of jazz drummer Patrick Barbenoire, the bewildering contortion of Sylvaine Charrier, and Maëlle Boijoux, who climbs a garden hose the ways others climb a rope. Plume dares to flood the stage with water using a complex system of hoses and valves. In the midst of a mop ballet, water jets spout up, unexpected or predictable, leading to surprising percussion on pots and pans…The clowns of yesteryear whacked each other over the head, whereas the clowns in Plume spray one another, juggle with geysers, and open valves while battening down the hatches. They get to know this damp liquid and then tame it, subdue it, and even climb it. Boots and umbrellas come to life; flippers and raincoats march by.
The music is pervasive, whether vigorous or discrete, blending with all elements of the show. But beware, "just because it’s raining right now, doesn’t mean it’ll rain later on", declares the song in Plic Ploc! Nougaro*, for whom the rain tap-dances, would have approved. The thousand privileged spectators at the preview on Thursday in Salins were enthralled.
*Reference to French singer Claude Nougaro and his song "la pluie fait des claquettes"