Circus Baobab: Yé !

Vertiginous human pyramids, bodies being thrown seven metres into the air, barely believable hand-on-hand acrobatics, combat, contortions and more – stunning circus skills, and all threaded through with a strong sense of place and a passionate exploration of pollution, power and control over a rare resource: water. The show is Yé ! – which translates as ‘water’ in Susu, Yoruba and other West African languages – and it comes from Circus Baobab, a company of 13 talented young dancers and acrobats from Guinea and the diaspora. Circus Baobab works collaboratively to develop shows that blend traditional West African performance forms with contemporary circus skills and choreography. This is edgy, exhilarating performance art in the service of social messages – but boy, is it entertaining too.

Yé ! is directed by Yann Ecauvre (he’s also responsible – with Jérémy Manche – for the show’s music). An innovative, self-taught performer, Ecauvre is the co-founder of Cirque Inextremiste, a French circus company renowned for its high-risk performances and signature use of unconventional props. He started working on the show that became Yé ! in 2021, collaborating with Bakala Camara and the company’s acrobatic specialist Damien Droin. The artists demonstrated their skills to them in the lively working-class Dixinn district and at the Centre Culturel Franco-Guinéen, and from that Ecauvre and Droin developed a story centred on environmental themes – particularly water scarcity and pollution.

Ecauvre’s direction for Yé ! has a pared-back, contemporary feel that probably breaks with more traditional, more exuberant African performance styles. And he has clearly taken inspiration from the everyday lives of the young acrobats, infusing the show with the kind of urgent environmental and social themes that impact their lives while also maintaining the essential sense of collective energy and physical virtuosity.

The result is true performance art: we can marvel at the strength, the dexterity, the sheer ability of the artists, and we can applaud the choreography that creates structures and patterns from the human body. But it’s easy to see that these have real purpose: the acrobats and dancers hold and support each other, the physical structures they create echo the social structures we need. As the handout puts it, “interpersonal relations are often the only comfort against the pull of nothingness. Immobility becomes synonymous with death”.

This performance will be followed by a post-show Q&A moderated by Chinasa Ezugha, Assistant Arts Professor of Live Art/Art as Social Practice and a Co-Director of Live Art Development Agency, London.

Circus Baobab’s Yé ! is on stage again on Saturday 10 May at 3pm.