Cuisine et Confessions - inviting the audience to join them in the kitchen around their favourite food

Some weeks ago I saw Cuisine et Confessions with 7 Fingers with some friends that had never seen contemporary circus before.

The show had already started when we got in; the artists were on stage messing around with some kitchen tools and things and it made a nice ambience. They already started to make some contact with the audience by asking things, making my friend prove that she could break an egg with just one hand and talking about food.

The interactions with the audience was the thing that made this show stand out compared to other contemporary circuses I have seen. It proved that interaction with the audience can be made even if we were seated in an old theatre, and they did it both by talking to us, come out to us and letting people up on stage.

After the show 7 fingers were inviting us to share some food with them

The show consisted of some big numbers with seamless transitions in between, and both were very good. The solo numbers were accompanied by the artist talking about their memories and relations to different kinds of food, which gave this show a very personal touch. This personal touch, the food theme and the interaction with the audience made the performers seem very human and "real", as an opposition to other circus shows where the performers sometimes feel like humans from another world.

The pace of the numbers with the small things in between gave the show good dynamics. Sometimes it is very focused on one performer or one thing, but in the big group acrobatic numbers there are so much going on that I could watch it again to see all the things I didn't this time. Not all the performers had a solo number, and it is not a bad thing but I somehow came to expect them to have that and found myself waiting and wondering if the show was really over when all the performers didn't made a solo.

My friend who had never seen contemporary circus before were both amazed by the circus skills, and surprised that there were so much "theatre" in it. The interaction made us involved and the playfulness took away the prejudices of "seriousness and deep subjects" that some people might expect from contemporary circus.

I really liked this show and I would recommend it for both people that are new to contemporary circus as already interested ones, as it is a friendly show that connects with the audience around a theme that is very personal so everyone can relate to it.