Our project is an outdoor, family-oriented circus show called Bienvenue chez nous!
The basic concept of the show is 4 friends that invite the audience into their universe, a whimsical environment built around a scaffold. Together, they live together in this space as vast as their imagination, having fun, playing, and using acrobatics to lift the audience out of their daily lives and to bring them into their world.
The show is conceptualized as three 8-minute pieces that can be combined into a 24-minute show, which allows us to adapt to the changing pandemic-related constraints, and also to present the show in a variety of contexts. For example, we can present it as 3 pieces in the street, but as a complete show for a summer camp.
The scaffolding structure offers us many unique acrobatic and dramaturgical opportunities:
• It positions the performers above the audience, allowing for better viewing. It also enables distancing between the performers and the audience and among the audience members.
• It can be decorated in a way that allows us to take the audience out of the context of the street and create our own alternative world/space, but is still easy to set up and move.
• It can be used as an acrobatic apparatus.
• It is capable of supporting aerial apparatuses, which is relatively rare for a small, outdoor show. Because of the rigging necessities of aerials, they are usually performed in a theater/tent-type venue, and the shows often cost money to attend. We aim to perform in publicly-funded spaces, removing the financial barrier to entry, and hopefully allowing more people to see aerials.
Our show will have a playful energy based around the interactions between the characters. However, we would also like to portray the relationships between the characters as layered and multifaceted, so there will also be moments of conflict, misunderstanding, and reconciliation. We will look at the potential issues and rewards that arise when people have close relationships.