My Mimos festival in Périgueux. The best of 07/24

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I do a daily summary of the best shows I saw today, to share with you and to keep track for myself. I prefer to forget the shows I disliked ; any criticism being subjective, it does not mean that the audience did not liked them or liked the same than me. A bit weird, but my «best off» is made up of three one woman shows today. There was a place for a 4th picture, I give you a picture of an old street of Périgueux. The old buildings of this city have a real charm, and narrow streets are good to find some shade when the weather is very warm like it was today. Tout ira bien/Everything will go well (top left photo) It is a one woman show around a kitchen. The least to tell is that it is great : the scenario is original and indescribable correctly, with several good comic effects. The actress, Maria Cadenas, is incredible, every of her moves is perfectly synchronized with the soundtrack of the show. She is a Spanish artist who studied dramatic art in Malaga and Sevilla and learned mime in France. The company «Compagnie Dé-chaînée» was created this year near Paris and the show played only in a few suburbs of Paris and Spanish cities until now, but you can keep her name in mind, she is a great performer. It is not completely mime, there is some talk, part in French/part in Spanish. D’ici D’ailleurs/From here From elsewhere (top right photo) Another one woman show and another original scenario. Trying to hide in a big suitcase to travel in a train, a stowaway finds another stowaway in the suitcase and has to deal with her. The second stowaway is a hand puppet and the actress, Géraldine Carpentier-Doré, is a very good puppet manipulator, continuing an old Belgian tradition of hand puppets manipulators. The show is half comic/half poetic but perhaps a bit too long. And it started late, thanks to the security guards, who decided to control all the backpacks of a hundred toddlers coming from a summer camp. It is well known that terrorists are recruiting now among toddlers, and it confirms that being ridiculous does not kill. The company, «Les petits délices», was founded in Namur (Belgium) in 2013. Hoopelaï (bottom left photo) Difficult to describe, it is street theater with... hula hoop ! The performer, Andréanne Thiboutot, is a French Canadian from Montréal who started by working in a circus in Québec before learning theater in Belgium. An executive woman wearing a black suit and big glasses is looking for love, and selects her men inside the public, 3 then 1, looking better with a blonde wig and an incredible tuxedo. The public laughs, the victim a bit less. But the performance is great as half of the show is done with the collaboration of this man coming from the public. Doing this needs nerves and a great measure of improvisation, as it can go wrong at any moment. At the end she is in underwear with a top in panther skin showing the beast in her. It looks more like an American burlesque comedy than a French vaudeville. The comic is straightforward and the public laughs. Simple but effective. That’s all for today.