A crowd congregated in Navy Pier's Gateway Park on Friday and Saturday night to catch performances by costumed and face-painted jesters from France's Compagnie Transe Express. Presented by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the free outdoor art spectacle, entitled Maudits Sonnants, continued the CST's ongoing World's Stage Series of international theatrical events. As The Chicago Tribune's theater critic, Chris Jones, wrote in a preview of Maudits Sonnants on Friday, this type of free public art event is more common in Europe and Australia.
Tall torches lit the Gateway Park perimeter, illuminating four 10-foot-tall metal structures attached to a 200-foot telescopic crane and featuring an elaborate metal framework outfitted with ropes, pulleys, and platforms. One by one, musicians and acrobats attached themselves to the edifice and began ringing bells, beating drums, and twirling around on trapezes as the human carillon lifted, with the city skyline and an almost-full moon as the backdrop.Oddly enough, Chicago also played host to another international outdoor art performance over the weekend. Strange Fruit, a performing arts company based in Melbourne, Australia, created a spectacle of its own in Millennium Park. Two men and two women performed the appropriately named Swoon! while balancing on14-foot-tall fiberglass poles designed especially for the group. Blending high-wire circus stunts with graceful dance moves, the acrobats donned whimsical costumes (suits and bowler hats for the guys, full skirts and petticoats for the girls) while bending and bowing over the crowd gathered below.
The performance took place in Chase Promenade Central and was reflected in the famous "Cloud Gate" sculpture (otherwise known as "The Bean"). As part of the free Family Fun Festival sponsored by Target and presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Strange Fruit's Chicago stint, which ran Thursday through Monday, kicked off a U.S. tour for the group.
Tall torches lit the Gateway Park perimeter, illuminating four 10-foot-tall metal structures attached to a 200-foot telescopic crane and featuring an elaborate metal framework outfitted with ropes, pulleys, and platforms. One by one, musicians and acrobats attached themselves to the edifice and began ringing bells, beating drums, and twirling around on trapezes as the human carillon lifted, with the city skyline and an almost-full moon as the backdrop.Oddly enough, Chicago also played host to another international outdoor art performance over the weekend. Strange Fruit, a performing arts company based in Melbourne, Australia, created a spectacle of its own in Millennium Park. Two men and two women performed the appropriately named Swoon! while balancing on14-foot-tall fiberglass poles designed especially for the group. Blending high-wire circus stunts with graceful dance moves, the acrobats donned whimsical costumes (suits and bowler hats for the guys, full skirts and petticoats for the girls) while bending and bowing over the crowd gathered below.
The performance took place in Chase Promenade Central and was reflected in the famous "Cloud Gate" sculpture (otherwise known as "The Bean"). As part of the free Family Fun Festival sponsored by Target and presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Strange Fruit's Chicago stint, which ran Thursday through Monday, kicked off a U.S. tour for the group.
Strange Fruit's aerial performance
Photo: BizBash
Strange Fruit, a performing arts company from Melbourne, Australia, put on its show, Swoon!, in Millennium Park this weekend.
Photo: BizBash
France's Compagnie Transe Express performed Maudits Sonnants, in which musicians and acrobats are lifted into the air on a human carillon, at Navy Pier Friday and Saturday night.
Photo: BizBash
