Ian's-tagram

Bunked off games yesterday and went to CiRCa where the Company Corps Sage were in residence, preparing their next spectacle « Mur / Mur ».

The current ‘trend’ in contemporary circus seems to be dark clothes, black backgrounds and virtually no lighting. Add to this periods of rapid movement – wonderful conditions for a photographer…

Luckily I have a bit of experience (and cameras that have super-sensitive sensors!) with these conditions, so I was able to justify my time with them – can’t for the life understand the ‘theme’ (if there ever was one) and reading the press documents just makes it worse…nice people though.

 

 

It’s autumn (well it has been for a while actually) and so here’s an ‘autumnal’ image…

Sometimes it’s amazing what you can find a few feet from your own front door… just have to open your eyes.

All good things come to an end….and this weekend, the thirtieth CiRCa Festival finished it’s 10 days of madness! 120 performances, 240 artists, probably in excess of 30,000 visitors – it was good.

One of my last performances were an English group called ‘Pirates of the Carabina’ with « Flown »

This was really very good – non-stop action, with a few slow bits (even so…) – the lamp in the picture above was hauled all over the place, with somebody hanging on for dear life!

The last performance I saw was my friends from the ‘Compagnie du Poivre Rose’ with « Mémoire(s) »

I have already photographed this troupe during their residence here in Auch only a month ago, and so it was interesting for me to see the ‘finished product’ as it were.

All in all I found the festival better than last year – by which I mean better photographically. This said, I am becoming increasingly frustrated in that with an audience it’s obviously impossible for me to be mobile and move around, so some angles are impossible to achieve.

There’s a noticeable difference between the tension perceived (from the artists) when they are performing in front of an audience or just two or three people during a dress rehearsal. This tension can really influence the quality of the images – in that the artists push themselves that extra little bit when there is an audience present, and this often manifests itself in the images.

I’m in two minds about continuing with my ‘coverage’ of the festival – I’m much more at ease when I have the liberty to move around while the artists are performing – and this shows in the images I produce. I’ve been doing this for 5 years now so I think I might have a pause next year – we’ll see.

Well it’s easy isn’t it – you press on the button, take a photo and bamm! You’re a photographer.

Doesn’t matter what you take a photograph of – proof of this is the famous ‘Beckham’ photo book. Apparently one of the Beckham brood, named Brooklyn (but why not Clapham or Willesden?) decided he was a photographer one day, and that he was SO good he’d produce a book.

He must have been REALLY good because, to date, the book that has been out a few months has sold 3890 copies (probably to his groupie friends). Wow! He must be so talented…

This is Beckham – you can see he’s good because he’s holding a camera…or did I mean sucking a Chupa Chups, or wearing a Ford t-shirt? Oh, and I forgot to mention, he’s 10, or 15 or something like that. One memorable photograph was of an elephant – or rather it wasn’t – by the time the photo was taken the elephant had got bored and moved off – the caption read something like « it had to be seen to be believed » – bit like his ‘talent’…

Anyway, this is becoming more and more the ‘norm’ – everywhere you look people are declaring « Now I’m a photographer » despite the fact that they have no discernable talent – minor problem really. Be like the film critic in the Monty Python sketch – just shout louder in public.

I laughed the other day when one of these ‘photographers’ (Pro you know, not just an ordinary photographer) decided to announce on Facebook  – after being a ‘pro’ for about three days – that from now on, all his previously ‘free’ work would now be ‘paid’ work. All this without ever actually bothering to show what he is capable of, in terms of ‘paid’ work.

Oh I forgot, he did put up a message asking people to give him ideas for what he could take photographs of…a real pro!

UPDATE : This just gets better – today our ‘Pro’ photographer posted this on Facebook

I rather get the impression that everyone else has to do his work for him…

Only two performances this evening (It should have been three but I gave up in the end...)

First up was a duo of Australian artists called ACROBAT – Jo and Simon formed the group over twenty years ago and have been touring ever since, often in Europe. The performance started well but I can’t personally come to terms with the fairly explicit mud-wrestling scene at the end…takes all sorts, and as the title suggests « It’s Not For Everyone »

Next up was a new creation from Raphaëlle Boitel and the Cie L’Oublié(e) – this was more pure circus, with five artists on stage who are all ex students of one of the best known French circus schools, Académie Fratellini in Paris.

The five were very dynamic and versatile and the spectacle flowed very well, aside from perhaps a slightly long tableaux featuring a girl suspended by cords being dragged all over the place. One interesting feature – they managed to make an amusing tableau using the magnesium ‘chalk’ the artists put on their hands to absorb moisture (You can see the dust on the image above) – quite clever.

 

And it’s been an interesting few days.

Sunday was the day everybody (in Auch) was waiting for – Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga was going to tightrope walk across the Gers (river) and arrive next to the cathedral – and she did, smiling all the way!!

Monday was « Esquif » which also featured Tatiana and two other circus companies – this was very exciting and well worth the 1h40 – the time passed really quickly and the performance was excellent.

In this image there are 14 musicians on a wooden board, all playing their hearts out, and balancing on an (empty) gas bottle – another member of the troupe is pointing a large fan at the group of musicians, and as predicted, they are slowly spinning around !

Tuesday was hot and cold – « Knot » with Nikki & JD was short and really quite beautiful – a simple story of an ordinary couple, linked by very expressive dance – enjoyed this a lot – the proof in photos…

Later the same evening (22h30) was « Circus Remix » by Le Troisième Cirque. Very innovative, but often too long – a series of short (well, sometimes long) tableaux that actually lasted nearly two hours (with a short intermission). Personally I think this has to be reworked, but the basic idea is excellent, and the only person on stage, Sellah Saimoaossi, was very good.

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Started this years festival with a bang – Cie Samuel Mathieu and « Guerre » in the Salle Bernard Turin – excellent stuff.

Not easy to photograph as there were several extended periods of silence, and/or near darkness…but I managed a few decent shots IMHO.

This was followed by a concert at the Cri’Art – a Californian band called The Lords of Altamont – their music is described as ‘Garage’ – what can I say…

This guy is the singer/keyboard player – after the first number he threw his keyboard off the stage – I went to see the manager to find out why and it seemed he had managed to tear the plug off the power lead. Needless to say McGiver Grandjean managed to repair the cable and he was able to play to the end of the set…(Frankly can’t say whether that’s good or bad – the level was so high I couldn’t actually hear anything anyway, certainly not the famous Farfisa organ…)

Three more spectacles today – speak later…