Aerial acrobatics show set to dazzle
French acrobats sail their show to public at yacht club
AGLOBE-TROTTING French family travel where the tides and weather take them and now they have sailed into the Windy City to perform their aerial acrobatics show at the Algoa Bay Yacht Club.
Artists Delphine Lechifflart, 46, and Franck Rabilier, 48, said yesterday that although their Port Elizabeth shows only start on Friday, they had raced to reach the city this past weekend to beat fierce winds and high swells.
“We pushed to arrive early so we were safe by Sunday. We are only in South Africa for three months because that is the window that the weather gives us, so we cannot do all that we want,” Lechifflart said.
Despite having travelled around the world twice on their yacht La Loupiote, this is their first time in South Africa, starting with a performance of their show in Richards Bay last week.
“It went very well – the people were very surprised because I think it was new to them,” Lechifflart said.
They have started to explore Central and took their eight-year-old daughter, Ondja, to visit the museum.
“She is not in the show – not yet! It would be too much for a child, but maybe one day,” Lechifflart said, adding that their elder daughter, Loeva, 16, was at school in France.
“She left the boat last year – she chose another life after 11 years on board.”
The couple are trained in the circus art of aerial acrobatics and use the mast, boom, rigging and other parts of their boat as their stage.
They have acted in front of audiences of up to 1 000 people.
They say that the yacht club will offer plenty of space.
“The audiences depend on the space around us but at the [yacht club] there is grass downstairs and the people can stand on the shore. “They will get a good view.” The couple met in 1992 in Paris, where Lechifflart was studying art history and Rabilier was an engineering consultant. They found they shared a love not only of the sea but also of the performing arts.
In 1999, they started a street theatre company, but they both found the call of the sea irresistible and started to look for a boat.
They bought one and began their new lives on July 14 2004.
Lechifflart said the weather looked fair for this weekend, and the show times were chosen accordingly.
Lechifflart and Rabilier will be giving two different shows: One The Sailors, inspired by Buster Keaton and silent films, is a parody of navigational manoeuvres that pokes fun at the mishaps of maladroit navigators.
The second, Between Wing and Island, deals with male-female relationships in a spectacle of aerial choreography and acrobatics in a duet that ranges from love, humour and poetry to earth, sea and sky.
The Sailor will be performed on Friday at 6pm and on Saturday and Sunday at 4pm.
Between Wing and Island will be performed on Friday at 8pm and on Saturday and Sunday at 6pm.
The shows are suitable for audiences of all ages and last 20 minutes each.
Additional information is available on their website for La Loupiote: www.voilierspectacle.com
After the city visit, they will sail down the Garden Route in time to perform in Table Bay at the Royal Cape Yacht Club for the year-end holidays.
See pictures online: www.heraldlive.co.za