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.