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| Jean-François Baëz and Jérôme Thomas |
A
few months had passed since the Fête de la Musique 2012, the last FrancoPhil
event that I was able to attend. I had to wait a lot longer than usual before
the next one. And it happened when the circus came to town as the Embassy of France, Alliance Française de Manille and Rustan’s in partnership with the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) presented DUO, a modern circus show by compagnie Jérôme Thomas at the PETA Theater
Center
The
duo is made up of juggler Jérôme Thomas and accordionist Jean-François Baëz who
are both from France .
The two delighted the audience with a perfect combination of juggling and
music. The show gave me more insight with the art of juggling, one that I only
associated with tossing various objects in air and not letting them fall to the
floor. Jérôme Thomas didn’t just do the usual tossing of objects like balls and
clubs, but he also did routines that I didn’t know was actually juggling. His
first number had him use the cane which he didn’t really toss but more of
passed from one hand to another through various parts of the body. Then, he also
balanced a ball in on his head while moving around and even going down on the
floor. For me, his most entertaining numbers was the one when he had to
skillfully roll the balls on a table that somehow looked like an illusion. He
also made use of the most unusual of objects for juggling like plastic bags and
feathers. He didn’t toss these objects in the air, but rather let them fall off
instead. And before these objects hit the floor, he did crazy stuff like
executing pirouettes before snatching these objects. Thomas’ routines won’t be
as effective, as funny or as entertaining if Jean-François Baëz wasn’t there to
provide the music with his accordion. The music highlighted the difficult moves,
delivered the humor and provided more excitement and thrills. It was truly
delightful to hear the changes in the music’s rhythm matching the changes in
the juggling patterns.
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| Jérôme Thomas meets a young fan |
I
have to say though that the routines didn’t go as perfectly as planned. There
were numerous occasions when the balls got dropped during the more challenging and
trickier parts of the routine. But the audience didn’t mind at all as Jérôme
Thomas effectively used humor to get back into the groove and still in time
with the music which was remarkable. Overall DUO, was not the usual circus act
that one sees at the ring along with the flying trapeze acrobats, tightrope
walkers and lion tamers. It was actually more similar to a street performance with
the appeal and charm that goes with it. There weren’t any flashy gimmicks, but
there was flashy juggling that was accompanied with great music.
