Grande- Centquatre

This is the first performance I've attended since returning to Paris, and it helped me remember why I keep coming back to this city for artistic inspiration. I was told this was a show I had to see because though it was categorized at circus/music/theatre, it truly created a genre of its own. Blending live music, circus stunts, humor, and poignancy, two performers, Tsirihaka Harrivel and Vimala Pons, share small reviews of individual moments. Though there was a reasonable amount of speaking in the performance (and my French still needs some work), I was thoroughly entertained and able to follow the general themes. 

Arranged on a series of tables is a mess of objects. Through the performers' interactions with these objects the importance of their seemingly innocuous nature  is brought to light. A cross becomes a sword, a door a view screen, and a shelter a coffin. Harrivel and Pons create live music on an elaborate set of instruments, utilizing delayed sounds and repetitions. The music runs parallel to many of the repeated circus acts, though just like the music each of these repetitions have slight alterations. The performers' chosen circus acts are symbolic of aspects of each character's personality. Pons is constantly weighed down by alternating objects, from a life-size mannequin to a washing machine, while Harrivel is repeatedly lifted by each object he holds, attached to an electronic crane, to be dropped again and again down an eight meter chute. Grande juxtaposes banality and brutality, tenderness and violence.  It can best be summed up by a line in its synopsis: "it resembles a juke box distributing poems."