Get into Afrika Afrika

10:07am Friday 1st February 2008

WITH an entire continent to choose from, it should come as no surprise that this extravaganza of more than 100 performers from 17 different countries is spectacular.

But that doesn't stop your jaw dropping in awe almost as soon as the first act bounces onto the stage.

Billed as an African experience rather than just a show Afrika Afrika's heated 'tented palaces' open an hour and a half before the start offering African food, drink, souvenirs and touristy trinkets to allow you maximum opportunity to part with your cash.

Sadly the show's German origins shine through here, despite a wealth of beers brewed on the continent, visitors are offered Becks and Africa's wonderful wine barely makes an appearance.

But there is a carnival atmosphere from the off and the tents offer a evocative place to spend the evening.

Austrian Andre Heller travelled the length and breadth of the continent to find the brightest and best circus performers before touring the show through Germany and later Europe, and he certainly didn't fail in his mission. Egyptians juggle swords, Angolan Huit Huit - who is far from weedy - turns himself inside out, and then - somehow fits his entire body through a tennis racquet. Stomp-like gumboot dancers from South Africa turn into acrobats who bounce up into a human pyramid and pole acrobats stretch out at right angles from the top of their poles as if gravity does not exist. Later, women juggle tables and giant jugs with their feet and a bouncing monocycle basketball game leaves the crowd whooping and cheering while a South African human snake does things with her body that no human really should be able to. It all leaves everyone gasping with a mixture of horror and glee.

Throughout performers and dancers alike make the circus ring look like it is a trampoline, jumping, bouncing, and flinging themselves through the air.

This is circus, exactly as you know it, but somehow with more physicality, more exuberance, more colour and more joy.

This is a show which will leave even the most hardened cynic smiling, the only real negative about Afrika Afrika is that by the end your hands hurt with clapping and your face aches with grinning from ear to ear.

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