Pas Perdus

"Calm...Calm...Calm" announced the PA system and so 4 people seemingly captive (in an asylum?) brings you to a place of wooden walls of infinite possibilities and amazing skill of juggling, balancing, music, precision...one could not keep his/her eyes off the "tricks" they were doing.

Translated from French as "Not Lost" (from an online translator), Pas Perdus is Les Argonautes' latest creation.

The amazing thing was that they could juggle most anything cuboid blocks, balls, etc. And imagine manipulating balls, stilts, wooden wall blocks that balances on only 1 corner. They even played pool using themselves. They had to be really be precise and have a good feel of the materials as well as good calculations of how to balance humans as well as huge objects. There was one part when 1 of them "climbed" to balance his whole body on stilts. This was very dangerous because any wrong move and he'll fall and hurt himself, or even be poked by the stilts. And they are multi-talented. They could play various instruments, like the violin, saxophone, trumpet and drums. And the way they were played, like hitting the drum from 2-3 metres away. etc. And if you've heard of piano four-hands, well, here you have violin four-hands! It's the 1st time I'm seeing something like that. Having learnt the violin when I was small, this left 1 of the deepest impressions for me during the show. Amazing. It's a bit difficult to describe everything. You've got to see it to know what I'm talking about.

(Pas Perdus was one of the programme curated by Esplanade for 'Flipside 2011', in conjunction with the Singapore Arts Festival.)