Callejeando - by Theo

For our third and final San Isidro outing we decided to go and catch some of the circus and street theatre acts that were taking place over the weekend. The whole programme was entitled "Callejeando", which means "loitering", an odd-choice, though I guess it was what the crowd ended up doing. Staged in three Plazas in the cosmopolitan barrio of Lavapies, the programme repeated itself at various set times, so after an early lunch we headed over, aiming to make the two o'clock show of Arcane.
This was essentially a trapeze show but using the axle of a giant wheel instead of the more traditional bar-on-a-rope-swing. As the troupe responsible were French, Les Philebulistes, they of course had to load their show with thoughtful movements, sentimental music and pensive posturing from the bare-chested performers, much like the man-and-digger dance we'd seen a couple of years ago. Frankly they could have ditched all that and gone for more somersaults. Rosie wasn't impressed, preferring to try out her tap dancing on a metal bench.


Next we met up with our friend Anne and moved round the corner for Les Colporteurs' performance of Les Etolies, another French troupe (there were also Spanish and Dutch artists performing). However, they were very good, with some impressive feats of balancing and grace, and at least the "story" of their high-wire act was easy to follow and more universal.
Boy-meets-girl and vice versa, boy pursues girl, girl falls in love with boy, boy then rejects girl for being clingy and literally walks all over her. This had Kate yelling "misogynist!" from the sidelines. However boy has a change of heart/mind/testicles (delete as appropriate) and takes girl back, at which point she realises what a jerk he is, tries to push him off the wire, fails, so leaves him in a dignified manner, which naturally brought a loud cheer from Kate (I would have clapped too but I was holding a flagging Rosie).

By which point it was nap time for our daughter so I duly walked back in the vague direction of home while she slumbered in the buggy.

the Circus has come to town, to town... by Theo

As well as free concerts, San Isidro weekend also brought free Circus fun, to be found in a small park just off the Ronda de Toledo. Meeting up with our friend Rebecca, we arrived slightly late for the first event to find ourselves at the back of a rather large-ish crowd. The only way to get any kind of view at all was to stand on a little climbing frame!There were two events taking place. The first, the Kawa Circus, was straight out of Rajastan, a combination of silent story-telling, acrobatics, music, dance and magic. From the bemused faces on the Spanish crowd I could tell that the story being enacted - two rival suitors for a beautiful girl guarded jealously by her pantomime villain father - really wasn't getting through.
It didn't really matter however, especially when the story reached its pinnacle (literally) as the two suitors were challenged to ever more spectacular feats on the tight-rope and a top a 20 ft pole. Impressive stuff.After the grand finale we, along with Rebecca's friend Mel and her two children, quickly moved over to where the second Circus was set up to grab a spot. Unfortunately the girls spent so much time standing up chatting away, that they neglected to actually sit down and thus lost the spot I'd bagged for them. We ended up having a our view obscured by a tree. Careless talk not only costs lives apparently, it also costs viewing privileges at leafy amphitheaters.

The second circus was much more modern, a one-man show about a tramp in his shack, with loads of ingenious, self-made modifications, like a unicycle powered dynamo. It was a witty affair, aimed at both parents and children, with plenty of slapstick to keep the kids amused and a satirical attack on estate agents got a lot of laughs from the adults. There was also an excellent take on juggling which I hadn't seen before - instead of throwing the balls in the air he was bouncing them off a table. It struck me as potentially far more difficult as there are more things to go wrong. It was well done and a great little show.

The weather had thankfully stayed dry, so we popped round to see Bianca, Stefan and their newborn son Oliver in nearby Puerta de Toledo, persuading them out to a late lunch on a nearby terrace. A lovely end to the day.