London International Mime Festival launches with joyous juggling

Life — A Love Letter to Merce Cunningham

Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells, London

“The drop is a moment for philosophical contemplation,” says juggler Sean Gandini with a mischievous grin as he introduces Life. Gandini Juggling’s joyous new show is the opener for this year’s London International Mime Festival, the annual showcase of physical theatre.

A tribute to the American choreographer Merce Cunningham, Life is a jaw-droppingly complex blend of dance and juggling — most of us would be doing a great deal of “philosophical contemplation” were we to attempt even the simplest of the company’s moves. It’s also playful, spellbinding and often exceedingly beautiful: you don’t need to know anything about modern dance or contemporary circus to be swept away by the skill and grace on show.

It begins gently, with Gandini and his company co-founder and director Kati Yla-Hokkala running through a series of juggling moves and drawing links between the patterns of the balls and musical time signatures: three balls give us a waltz; five and we’re into Stockhausen territory. Then in come the company, shifting across the stage in a series of smooth tendus and sharp retirés, eyes fixed on the capricious patterns of the balls they toss into the air.

Soon they have drawn us into a world of shape, space and rhythm, where balls, clubs or rings seem to join the dance, matching the intricate footwork, hanging in the air mid-turn or extending the arcs and lines created by the performers. At one point the dancers criss-cross the space, some in curved hops, with the balls tracing the curve above them, others in jetés, with the balls shooting out to the sides of the space in sympathy with their extended legs.

There’s a headache-inducing passage when two dancers link arms to create a rhythm, using their four hands and feet, and pass the balls simultaneously between them. Caroline Shaw’s live, layered music adds another strand of complexity. Perhaps the loveliest are the slow sections. In one, a couple glide across the back of the stage in a mesmerising duet of lunges and arabesques, passing illuminated clubs between them.

It’s not the first time the company has drawn inspiration from dance. For Life, Gandini and Yla-Hokkala have worked with former Cunningham dancer Jennifer Goggans, who makes her juggling debut in this work.

There is a meditative quality to the piece and, as with many contemporary circus-skilled shows, a reflection on the rhythm and balance, trust and co-operation needed in life, as well as on stage. Its short run has sadly finished, but this is a show that will surely return to the company repertoire.

As with so many shows, Life’s journey to the stage has been interrupted by the pandemic. Indeed the whole mime festival marks a return to live, in-person performance, following the migration of the event online last year. There’s a particular pleasure therefore in seeing pieces that celebrate the physical presence of the body (the festival has long since exceeded any narrow definitions of “mime”). This year’s programme brings back favourite artists, such as Aurélien Bory (aSH, Barbican, January 26-29) and previously successful works such as Vanishing Point’s Interiors (Barbican, February 2-5), which plays out a dinner party behind a glass screen.

★★★★★

Touring internationally, gandinijuggling.com

Bluebelle

Shoreditch Town Hall, London

There’s a certain poignancy to works about loneliness and loss this January. Theatre Re’s Bluebelle is one such, opening in an empty theatre with just a “ghost light” on the stage (the lamp that burns when a theatre is “dark”) and beginning with the gradual emergence of what appears to be a travelling troupe from a bygone century. That strikes a chord, given the experience of the arts world over the past two years.

The performers’ story is a mysterious and unsettling piece, drawn from various folk tales and delivered without words. A king and queen yearn for a child and summon a fairy to grant their wish. But they fail to keep their side of the bargain, with disastrous consequences. Like all such tales, it’s a fantastical story that digs into dark psychological truths — here the pain of infertility, the protective nature of parenting and the way protection can tip into control. The much-wanted child is enclosed in a transparent bubble, which keeps her safe, but restricted.

The company (directed by Guillaume Pigé) deliver all this through precise, eloquent body language, accompanied by live music, spinning up an eerie and otherworldly atmosphere. As the story reaches its conclusion, they melt away, as if back into some metaphorical backstage space where the folk tales that thread through our culture are stored.

★★★☆☆

At The Lowry, Salford, February 8-9, thelowry.com

The Red Balloon

Puppet Theatre Barge, London

Loneliness is key too to The Red Balloon, a gently charming children’s story, deftly delivered using long-string marionettes. The venue, moored in the capital’s Little Venice area, is, as its name promises, a vessel entirely dedicated to puppetry. It’s particularly apt for little ones (The Red Balloon is for three years and over), who clamber up the gangplank and into the diminutive auditorium where ducks float past the portholes.

In String Theatre’s show (based on Albert Lamorisse’s beguiling 1956 film of the same name), a small boy befriends a red balloon, which bobs in the air like an enticing lollipop, teasing and comforting its solitary little companion. The puppet show (directed by Kate Middleton and Rob Humphreys) lacks the grey, gritty backdrop of the original, which was filmed in rundown, postwar Paris, and the events differ — here there’s an elderly lady hanging out washing and a rather random acrobat on a swing, both of which enable the puppeteers to demonstrate their dexterity.

But the role of the balloon as a beacon of hope, and a child’s dreamy escape from a dull, rule-bound life, still stands. This is a little gem of a show that holds its young audience captivated.

★★★★☆ 

To March 20, puppetbarge.com

(le) PAIN

The Place, london

We’re back in France for (le) PAIN, only this time in the lush, beautiful south-west. The show by Jean-Daniel Broussé, who performs under the name JD, begins with video of the area — producing an audible sigh from the audience — which gradually zooms in on his family’s village bakery. His autobiographical solo, directed by Ursula Martinez, charts his struggles with the expectation that he will take forward the family business, his “running away” to the circus and his emergence as a successful, queer artist.

It’s another mime festival delight. JD’s story is often poignant, often painful, but it is sprinkled with mischief and dusted with humour: the title itself plays on the French and English meanings of the word “pain”. He arrives dressed for a baking class, in chef’s trousers and white T-shirt, and begins by kneading dough and prepping baguettes that he will then bake in an onstage oven.

As the tantalising smell of baking bread gradually fills the auditorium, JD wrestles with his identity, splicing film of his father contemplating closing the bakery with a restless onstage performance that has him writhing in a white sack like a lump of leavened dough, rolling, leaping and gliding athletically across a floury kitchen trolley and playing a boha (traditional bagpipe) while telling a story in Occitan (the local language).

The bread — pummelled, stretched, rising, emerging golden from the oven and finally shared with the audience — becomes a metaphor for his experience. “Could I be both? Baker and performer?” he muses, as he crosses the stage, semi-naked and holding a tray of baguettes. “How would I even do that?”

★★★★☆

Touring to Warwick Arts Centre (February 1), Manipulate Festival, Edinburgh (February 4), The Lowry, Salford (April 21) and Déda, Derby (May 19). Festival continues to February 6, mimelondon.com