‘Foutoir Céleste’, by Cirque Exalté

Review from: CIRCa Festival, Auch; October 2022

This review was written as part of a module on the BA Circus degree at SKH. You can read more student reviews from CIRCa here.

This review is addressed to the public before seeing the show.

Foutoir Céleste, of the company Cirque Exalté, is an explosive, colourful, passionate show that challenges the primary and fundamental emotions of the artists on stage. Throughout the show a coyote is guiding the dramaturgy; he is the disruptive element of our life, and he is our unexpected, our fragility, and our sensibility.

For this show the artists were inspired by the sanctity of the coyote. They wrote the following poem:

One day gods had gathered to establish invincibility.

Each thing acquired would stay forever, there would be no more unexpected, no more risks. The end of fragility, the end of being fallible, delicate, sensitive…

The end of doubts, of death, of unwavering mystery…

And when this law would be finally adopted, Coyote arrives at the assembly.

And then, he put the music at the maximum, he activates the fire alarm, he dances on the couch, put vodka into the water bottles, some itching powder in the jacket of the God of the gods, and in a last pirouette, he swallowed up the registry…

After that, the gods did not have other choices than to give up.

All through the show you will be impressed by their capacities to adapt their technique to a circular form, reiterated by the coyote when he is turning around close to them on stage or in the process of prowling the external circle of the public. When you enter under the tent make sure to observe the details around you and above you. Each artist communicates a thought, a feeling, or an emotion. The trapezist, for example: a sweet and dynamic woman speaks about the doubts in life, the fear to dare to do what we want, what we like. A strong musical theme collaborates with the coyote. They are taking care of each other even when they are fighting, getting provoked by the coyote, by life. At this moment the artist must be really reactive, almost as much as the public, close to the stage or not. Passion and sincerity are the key words of the show.

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