Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Cirque Kalabanté: WOW (World of Words)
Cirque Kalabanté
Genre: Circus, Dance, Physical Theatre
Venue: Assembly Hall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Acrobatics, dance, African music and humour combine for a family-friendly enjoyable hour of circus-style performance.
Review
A stage covered in straw with a single rope separating it into two. The sound of birds. A dark, ethereal setting. A set reminiscent of a scene out of Africa. Highly-muscled acrobats take the stage and the “wow” movements begin.
Welcome to Cirque Kalabanté, an hour of entertainment through the extraordinary physical feats of talented performers.
A ring drops from the ceiling and two women deftly share the bar, over, under, hanging in mid-air, over and under again, on top and below, showing strength and agility.
The feats of flexibility define the performance. The tumblers propel across the stage. They literally defy gravity, flying through the air. The contortionists take positions that are should actually be impossible, legs behind their heads and more. There are somersaults on the ground and in the air, forwards and backwards. There are human pyramid towers of athletes. There are hand-to-hand strength demonstrations, where one performer balances with a single hand upside down on the strongman on the stage. It is very impressive.
The skipping ropes appear, but the jumping is far more sophisticated than what we tried in the schoolyard. Double ropes rotating in opposite directions provide the set for the performers, who handily go in and out of the moving ropes, not only skipping but also tumbling.
They are also talented dancers. When they take over the full stage in a choreographed routine, it is extremely powerful.
All of the movements are accompanied by African music, with singing, the rhythmic drumming with the djembes of Guinea, and the melodious sound of the Kora, a stringed instrument. The musicians have truly mastered the genre. Dramatic lighting adds to the effects on stage.
There is not much of a story line to hold the show together, mostly a thin plot about waring tribes in different coloured costumes. However, the show is engaging. There are several opportunities for the audience with call and response singing, which sometimes feels added as a filler but the people enjoyed it. The show is not exactly WOW but the individual performers and their astonishing feats create the “wow” factor.
Yamoussa Bangoura created the company that performs WOW. Growing up Conakry Guinea, he studied the circus performers he saw on European TV and practiced on the beach and dirt around his home. He learned the Nyamakala tradition of circus, practiced by the Fula people of West Africa. He eventually joined Guinea’s original circus company, Circus Baobob, with whom he toured Africa and Europe.
He came Canada with Cirque Eloize and performed with the internationally acclaimed Cirque du Soleil and Cavalia (cirque with horses). He subsequently created his own company in Montreal, Canada, and hosting a studio for teaching circus, music and West African dance. WOW is his newest production.
The company delivers an hour of some amazing circus skills and African music. It is great family entertainment by talented and skillful acrobats and dancers.
