La Strada opens

Pole acrobatics to the beat of the time clock

The French Collectif Sous Le Manteau at the Landhaushof(Bild: La Strada Graz / Nikola Milatovic)

This year's edition of the Graz street theater festival La Strada opened on Friday evening in the Landhaushof in Graz. The French Collectif Sous Le Manteau presented "Mikado", an ode to collapse - and reconstruction. The festival attracts visitors with a varied program until 4 August.

The artists from the French Collectif Sous Le Manteau slowly trickle into the Landhaushof in Graz. A jungle of poles awaits them on stage - it looks like a gigantic Mikado game, which also gives the production its name. Then suddenly the red light at the edge of the stage goes on, the time clock spits out a first order - and the acrobats punch in and begin.

It is a poetic treatise on risk that the French ensemble delivers at the opening of La Strada - scene by scene, they work through the orders of the mysterious time clock. The goal is always the same: to push the art of bar acrobatics to the limit and to collapse the structures that are created for it on stage. But the collapse in "Mikado" is not a failure - it is the necessary step to start all over again, to take new risks and to fail in a different way. 

An acrobat from the Collectif Sous Le Manteau(Bild: La Strada Graz / Nikola Milatovic)

The troupe is still performing in Graz until July 29 - but unfortunately all performances are already sold out.

A boxing match with the clown
You also have to be prepared to take a small risk when visiting the British-New Zealand clown Fraser Hooper. In his "Funny Business", he involves the audience in hilarious scenes: Children chase after an electric duck or jump into imaginary cool water as fish and then let Hooper catch them.

Fraser Hooper in a boxing match in Graz(Bild: La Strada Graz/Nikola Milatovic)

(Bild: La Strada Graz/Nikola Milatovic)

But adults are not safe from him either: together with volunteers, he builds a boxing ring on stage and starts the boxing match of the century. The fact that not only the opponent but also the corner posts fall victim to the clown's comic attacks confirms that Fraser Hooper is a master of "funny business".

To be seen until July 29 in Graz (Freiheitsplatz, Murpark and Kaiser-Josef-Platz) and on July 30 in Kalsdorf and Weiz.