Petit Mal: Concrete Circus at Brighton Dome
Walking in the air
Experience circus as you’ve never seen it before as Race Horse Company – described as the “bad boys of Finnish circus” – come crashing into Brighton with their global hit, Petit Mal: Concrete Circus.
Action-packed with seemingly impossible stunts, this explosive show fuses acrobatics with extreme trampolining, breakdancing and hip-hop in a high-octane performance.
On a stage littered with garage debris, three bold young performers take you through a riotous display of extreme physicality, on-stage anarchy and dark humour – all performed to a soundtrack which includes DJ Shadow, Joy Division, Bob Dylan and original music by Tuomas Norvio. An exhilarating spectacle from start to finish, Petit Mal: Concrete Circus takes you to the edge of what circus theatre can be – a thrilling treat for everyone aged seven and up.
Since 2009, Petit Mal: Concrete Circus has been performed in 16 countries worldwide garnering rave reviews and standing ovations wherever it goes. Most recently, it won Best Performance at the 2013 International Theatre and Street Arts Festival in Valladolid, Spain.
Race Horse Company was born in 2008 out of Petri Tuominen’s, Rauli Kosonen’s and Kalle Lehto’s need to create uncompromising, personal and a completely new kind of contemporary circus. The three performers spoke recently about how the show was created.
“The inspiration came from us wanting to make a show with skills that we haven’t seen on stage before,” says Petri. “Something that was new took us in a new direction, so we started working on it and then… voila, Petit Mal: Concrete Circus.
“This explosive show fuses acrobatics with extreme trampolining, breakdancing and hip-hop in a high-octane performance”
“I went to circus school but before then I was a writer and I did a little bit of dance,” Kalle says on how they became circus performers. “But at circus school I started to do more acrobatics and that was it! It wasn’t like it was a big dream to be in circus, I just wanted to move so I thought I’d apply.
“I wanted to be a stunt man at one point… then I found myself at chef’s school when I was 16, but that didn’t work out,” says Rauli.
“I spent all my time on a trampoline at a circus youth space where we got to jump around as much as we liked so I was spending all my time there. Then I found out there were actually circus schools you could go to for real. And now I’m here with my two friends.”
How would they describe their style? “Somebody called what we do ‘floating’,” says Kalle. “There’s a special technique we use for work on the trampoline, it’s finding the difference between tensing your body when you’re falling towards the net and how you relax when you’re bouncing back into the air. But the key point I’m always trying to find is the point of suspension in the air, when you’re not falling or rising, when you’re at zero gravity and you’re just floating. It’s those little things that we play with.
“For me it’s like braking, when you’re coming from a certain direction and you stop it somewhere, whenever you want, and just freeze. That’s the same thing I try to do with my acrobatics. I move as long as I feel like it and then I find a freeze moment at a point in the show and I let it be.
In this show, mostly my freezes are when I crash. Crashing to the floor is always good.”
You can watch a trailer at www.brightondome.org.
Petit Mal: Concrete Circus plays at Brighton Dome from Tue 17 – Sun 22 Dec. Tickets £10–£20* Under 26s half price. Book on: 01273 709709, www.brightondome.org
*A transaction fee applies to all phone and online bookings
