30th International Monte Carlo Circus Festival

Published Wednesday 8 February 2006 at 15:40 by Liz Arratoon

It is rare for any event to capture the imagination of an entire population but the whole of Monaco seemed to be in the grip of circus fever for the 30th International Monte Carlo Circus Festival.

The lavish Christmas illuminations - which included a big top and ring created out of fairy lights complete with artists and animals - were left up, every shop window had a circus-themed display and even the cashiers in the supermarkets wore circus sweatshirts and badges.

Intended to honour its late founder Prince Rainier, the festival was billed as a ‘best of’ with the artists being drawn from previous winners of the festival’s highly sought-after Clown awards. With the passage of time, many acts are no longer performing, so inevitably most of the artists chosen had appeared here during the past ten years.

In a change to the usual format there was no competition but the artists still took part in two shows, repeated over four days, and then again at the Golden Gala.

Gold Clown winners - Impressively, eleven former Gold Clown winners were here, although the beautiful French circus star Maud Gruss and her father Alexis only made a single appearance at the gala. She performed one of her signature numbers, the ‘post’, in which she stands astride the backs of two horses galloping round the ring and gathers the reins of 15 others as they pass beneath her. It is a mark of her skill that someone so slightly built can execute this feat so effortlessly.

Many people’s favourite act was the exquisite pas de deux of China’s Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe. During their exceptional balletic adagio number, the reed-like but steely Wu Zhendan stands en pointe on her partner Wei Baohua’s head and shoulders. She pirouettes and performs arabesques and a deep back bend which sends the crowd into raptures.

American Anthony Gatto - probably the world’s best juggler - starts where most others finish. Looking chic in black, his complicated patterns with five balls, seven rings and up to seven clubs left everyone open-mouthed but he did much harder tricks when clinching gold in 2000.

Italy’s Errani Brothers have a super-slick and skilful Risley act in which Mycol foot-juggles Guido. Smart and handsome, they are mesmersing as Guido is spun like helicopter blades and executes repeated high-speed somersaults landing feet to feet, hands to feet and even head to foot.

With his expressive face, another Italian, David Larible, has a universal gift for making people laugh and must be the best clown in the world. Although he was battling flu, his two spots using members of the audience to act out an opera and create an offbeat orchestra are brilliantly funny.

Highwire kings the Quiros are so good at what they do - running, jumping and dancing along a double wire, that they just do not look scary. In white tie, top hat and tails, they really put on the Ritz but the heart-stopping Wallendas would have been my preferred choice.

Tiny flyer Anna Gosudareva of the Rodion Troupe did not repeat her perilous and historic quadruple somersault on Russian bar that clinched gold last year. Instead, almost trampolining on the narrow bar, she achieves a sure-footed single followed by a double followed by a triple as the finale to their routine.

Ukrainian equilibrist Anatoly Zalewski is a perfect combination of suppleness and strength. On a smooth white platform, he performs some mind-bending balances and flips, sliding and gliding from one position to the next. Balancing on his fingertips in a planche position is his piece de resistance.

Wearing red and white costumes decorated with snowball pom-poms, it was great to see the 11-strong Puzanovi Troupe on teeter board working without lunges. They perform thrilling somersaults, creating human columns and including a quintuple move, finishing with a triple landed on one stilt.

Fredy Knie Jnr appeared twice with different equestrian numbers, the first with his four-and-half-year-old grandson and daughter Geraldine, whose horses play musical statues. Most impressive is Knie’s carousel of a mixed ensemble of 24 horses all circling the ring together in a variety of formations, the contrasting colours of their coats, from black to gold, looking magnificent.

It is perhaps time for the great but elderly Russian clown Oleg Popov - Gold Clown winner at the eighth festival in 1981 - to call it a day. At best his entrees can be described as gentle, but the little Scotty dog who kept slipping its collar to steal its master’s picnic is clever and sweet.

Silver Clown winners - Another winner from the same year is Swiss juggling supremo Kris Kremo but he has barely aged. He uses balls, top hats - tipping the brims on his brow before settling them on his head - and a medley of a lighted cigar, a ball and a bowler hat. Juggling three cigar boxes, he spins while they hang in the air. His casual manner and dry humour add to the effect.

British brothers Martin and Alex Lacey performed two thrilling cage acts and their skill and rapport with their animals must make them the world’s foremost trainers. Instead of the drowsy big cats so often seen, all the animals look in peak condition. They show real spirit and there is often an exciting flash of claw.

Alex’s presentation of a mixed group of tigers, lionesses and a lion includes two tigers forming a pyramid, paws up on the lion’s back. Scarily he puts his whole face into the lion’s mouth and finishes like a true showman in a blizzard created by a huge glitterball. Martin, looking like Vegas Elvis in a white, high-collared outfit, presented eight lionesses and a lion. Most impressively some of them leap high against the side of the cage over the heads of two others. He cleverly averted a moment of real danger after slipping over while running along the pedestals.

More spine-tingling moves came from the Velez Brothers - Rudy and Ray Navas - who seem to have a ball on their high-speed Wheel of Death. When Ray nips nimbly on to the outside of the revolving wheel, you will not see anyone jump higher or with more reckless abandon.

Italian elephant trainer Flavio Togni holds three Silver Clowns, the first of which he won 30 years ago. He presented two fast-paced and decorative numbers with groups of Indian elephants ridden by dancers, which included the surreal sight of two of them doing handstands and headstands.

So muscular are Cirque du Soleil’s Alexis Brothers - Marco and Paulo Lorador from Portugal - that they have crossed the aesthetic line between looking like honed Greek gods and hunks of meat. This detracts from their sensational slow-motion hand-to-hand routine, in which holds of breathtaking strength are seamlessly linked.

Another slow-mo smooth operator is Russian hand-balancer Oleg Izossimov, who performs an inverted ballet on canes, backed by a Pavarotti track. Effortlessly graceful, he seems to float weightless in space as he glides from position to position on a revolving platform, barely touching down.

Though some still find it sexy and exciting, Duo Mouvance must be bored to tears with their body to body tango routine on static trapeze. They have been performing it for about 15 years and although it was once innovative, with their dreary costumes and jerky moves, it could do with being updated.

Quite how Russian clown Jigalov, with his trademark snort and giggle, ever won a Silver Clown is anyone’s guess. Completely unfunny, he messes around with Hungarian straight man Albert Csaba.

In contrast is the wonderful Fumagalli - in his trademark red old-style ring-boy outfit - whose violent looking pratfalls in the table routine with Daris Huesca, which later hospitalised him during the gala, are fantastic. His drunken bee number is less funny if you have seen it before but who else could get away with spraying the royal box with a mouthful of water?

Bronze Clown winners - Bronze is not often a colour associated with ‘best of’ anything but two winners were included. Maike and Jorg Probst, in their usual dull costumes, had two spots, one with their clever acrobatic baboons and the other with a farmyard of animals, ranging from a cockerel walking the plank to a goat riding bareback on a donkey. The Probsts themselves perform voltige on a bull and an ox.

Bingo is a young troupe of red-clad artists who could fill a whole circus programme so diverse are their disciplines. They perform on silks, straps, rope and double static trapeze simultaneously. Adding contortion, hand to hand and hand balancing to this confusion, meant that, sadly, many of their talents are missed.

Also appearing - With the North Koreans having banned their flying trapeze artists from leaving the country, a couple of aerial acts, neither of them winners, slipped under the gate.

Despite most of them being drastically overweight - not a good look in white tights - at least the Mexican Rodogels on flying trapeze, seen here in 1997, have some real skills, including a triple somersault.

The Sarytchev Troupe’s aerial fantasy however, from their tasteless costumes to their wire attachments - which haul them into position and save them from falling - is like a bad dream.

Appearing for the second year running, the Marx Troupe of children and teens are again tastelessly dressed, this time in the red and white colours of Monaco. Their highspot is hurling massive balloons over the heads of the crowd which kept everyone enthralled during an equipment change.

Last and least were Duo Nikulin, two dear little girls who had been transformed into flea-like circus freaks. Staging a mock fight they perform acrobatics as if on speed, but their presence and that of the Marx would surely be more appropriate at a junior festival.

Spanish clowns the Gotys helped out in the ring.

Reto Parolari’s circus orchestra played for many of the acts, and the gorgeously dressed Clowns en Folie band made their customary stylish appearance.

Sergio, who was ringmaster here for the first 26 festivals, was given a warm welcome as he took his seat in the audience. Sadly, his replacement, Petit Gougou, lacks his skill and is annoyingly obsequious.

Golden Gala - At five and a half hours long, the celebratory golden gala became interminable. The promise that many of the artists would work together for the first time ever was not realised, as, although some top names - such as Anthony Gatto and Kris Kremo - were in the ring together, their acts were simply intercut. This proved difficult in the case of the Rodion, the Chinese pas de deux and Oleg Izossimov, when it came to moving props and changing their music.

Almost every act was given a standing ovation, something that used be as rare as hen’s teeth at this festival, when, reserved like a priceless jewel for only the very best, it had more value.