Patinoire

No offence to Cirque de Soleil, but the dance company Les 7 Doigts de la Main (The Seven Fingers) have no need of teams of acrobats and complex stage sets to set the stage alight. Instead, they make do with one very limber clown, a ramshackle collection of found objects and one intrepid actor/athlete. Their current piece ‘Patinoire’ (‘Skating rink’) is a circus show, expertly produced by one of the company’s co-founders, Patrick Leonard. In it, a tower of Babel issues from a sound system onstage, while chairs balance on wine bottles and acrobats play diabolo and a ukulele. The whole has an air of a magical car boot sale, explored through each of the set pieces, which ‘skate’ dextrously between dance, theatre and circus.