African show delivers frenzied fun

BY MATT RICHENS

Once in a while you see something that makes you turn to the person next to you and say "wow".

Something so good you want to call your mum and tell her about it, text a friend, or sit over coffee and analyse it blow by blow. Cirque Mother Africa, Circus of the Senses is that something.

The "wow" describes not only the show as a whole, but the individual acts. The dancing is brilliant, the circus-style acts breathtaking and the music – think Lion King on steroids – makes you move. From go to whoa Mother Africa is a treat.

In short, Mother Africa is an energetic display of acrobatic mastery mixed with dance, contortion, juggling, cheek and general acts pushing the body to its limits, all to the beat of a live African soundtrack.

The show has been touring for more than eight years, playing to more than 2 million people.

It plays in Hamilton tomorrow and Wednesday at the Founders Theatre, and if you go along be prepared to get sore hands because you hardly stop clapping.

There's the usual circus-type acts, stilt walkers, jugglers, dancers and music, but all to a different level.

On-stage contortionism is becoming more commonplace, but Ethiopian Teame Gebregziabher takes it to a new level.

Among plenty of other gimmicks and tricks, Gebregziabher runs around the stage like a very convincing spider.

His scuttling and his peculiar panda-type suit are only topped by the feats he can make his poor back, and other parts, perform.

The acts aren't perfect, but for some reason that makes it more real and more enjoyable.

When Tanzanian balance expert (it is far more impressive than it sounds) Ibrahim Hafidh Mussa starts his act, what he does looks hard.

By the time he's finished most people have at least one eye covered and are just waiting for him to fall and hurt himself. They don't want him to, but surely balancing on a small plank, on a rolling cylinder, on another small plank sitting on another rolling cylinder, on top of a table is too hard to get right.

We're not talking street corner acrobatics here; these aren't pick-it-up-in-an-hour tricks.

Ibrahim gives the crowd one scare, but of course a man with such freakishly impressive skills wasn't going to do anything but land on his feet. And he gets it the second time, all to the crowd's approval.

His slightly embarrassed look as he took the smallest of tumbles was the only time the group didn't have beaming smiles. But there was something oddly pleasing about seeing the slight flaw in the act.

If the group had moved through a two-hour show perfectly we would not have known how hard the acts were.

This way we knew they were pushing themselves.

The circus-type acts are split by musical numbers utilising the voices of differing numbers of the group.

Though none of the songs are hits you'd hear on the radio here – apart from the mini Bob Marley tribute – most of the crowd were bobbing their head and tapping their feet.

The music is deep and without knowing the history, or meaning for that matter, there's a passion about the songs that infects the audience.

Mother Africa is much more than a circus. Some of the acts look like a disaster waiting to happen and the amount of training and skill needed is mind-boggling.

In true African style though, the whole show is fun. It's cheeky and you can't help but smiling with the entertainers.

Two of their biggest smiles came from the duelling tap dancers. Tap in New Zealand, and probably the rest of the world, doesn't exactly have the most masculine of reputations, but it would be a brave bully to make fun of Mother Africa's duelling tap dancers.

South African pair Thembinkosi Tshabalala and Mduduzi Magagula look like they'd be more at home on the side of a Springboks scrum than in a dance class, but the pair were as impressive as they were cheeky.

There's something about two chiselled African men wearing not much that seemed to get the ladies in the audience very excited. Again, probably the smiles.

But the best smile belonged to 12-year-old performer Yonas Teka. His nerves came through at the start of his act, but when he unofficially broke the world record for the most backflips, he beamed.

Apparently there's a story behind the show, but it was easy to miss while getting lost in the individual acts, and not following the storyline took nothing away.

The songs and music are great, the tricks breathtaking, the bodies impressive, the costumes spectacular and the overall package is slick. Go and see it. You'll smile.

What: Cirque Mother Africa

Where: Founders Theatre

When: Tuesday, September 7 and Wednesday, September 8, 8pm.

Tickets available from Ticketek.

- © Fairfax NZ News