Festival has a flight of fancy
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Denmark's Flying Superkids really fly and are indeed super. You'd think we'd be more impresse
The stage in the Thailand Cultural Centre’s Main Hall looked far more casual than usual for last weekend’s Thai debut by the Flying Superkids of Denmark. Some of the lighting equipment was in full view and the dance floor extended out over the orchestra pit.
The result was that the audience was much closer to the action, even if some lighting effects had to be sacrificed.
Information was projected onto a screen at the outset about a troupe that’s 44 years old but stocked with youngsters. The performers keep up with their schooling amid training a few days per week a few hours a day – quite different from how parents here handle their wannabe-stars children.
The Danish company is clearly more concerned with its cast members’ personal development than with their careers in show business.
But in fact these youngsters are better than many established professionals in the level of joyful enthusiasm they maintain. They really seem to enjoy jumping and somersaulting, more so than dancing and singing.
It was nice watching a young Dane doing Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk, though most of us have seen even younger kids do better. On the other hand, the Superkids can swivel with multiple hula-hoops far better than any adults.
Understandably, the show’s creator wanted variety, but it does risk turning the programme into a talent show.
Then there was the “new wine in the same old bottle” syndrome. Leaping over Lego blocks in the scene called “The Toy Story” wasn’t much different from leaping over a piano in “The Piano”.
And in the scene titled “Balloon”, we had the right to expect more than the same old trick: Yet again we had to help push big colourful balloons back onto the stage.
A lot of parents brought their children to the show, knowing it would be solid family entertainment – a rarity in Bangkok. But Saturday evening’s audience was only half full.
The junior spectators had a good time regardless, even though the little girl in front of me barely budged in her father’s lap, and the one behind stayed quiet throughout. She had, after all, briefed her younger brother beforehand, “Watching things is better than talking.”
The Flying Superkids offer fun-filled family entertainment, in a show created in a way that’s beneficial and worthwhile for the kids, but I’m not sure it was a good fit for the festival.
It would have been much more fun seeing them in an even less formal setting, such as their home gymnasium in Denmark, which we glimpsed in the video before the show.
A WEEK TO GO
- Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music has the Ekatarinburg Opera and Ballet Theatre for a symphony concert and two operas today through Saturday.
- On Monday, it’s the Move Dance Company from Canada.
- That’s followed by the Vienna Boys’ Choir on Wednesday and Fado singer Katia Guerreiro on Thursday.
- The Ballet Nacional de Espana will close the festival next weekend.
- Tickets are available at ThaiTicketMajor.
- Find out more at www.BangkokFestivals.com.
