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Dancing to a brighter beat

23/ 7/2008

EXPECT the kind of dazzling show that leaves the senses stunned and the memory full when Afrika! Afrika! comes to Manchester next week.

A tented palace at the Trafford Centre will be a temporary home for more than 100 compelling artists from 15 different countries.

There is an amazing array of skills on view – from daring acrobatics to joyous singing and skilful dancing.

This is a giant celebration of African culture that promises to bring real excitement to the north west. Staged by Andre Heller, it offers so much more than just a show, with beautiful Moorish tents and Moroccan-style cafes to the authentic African arts and crafts and food offering a rare glimpse of the heart of Africa.

The performers are a marvellously diverse and entertaining ensemble and include Lunga, the snake lady, who can bend and twist her body in astounding ways.

Then there’s Huit Huit, who uses his limbs like spiders’ legs – he can fit his whole body through the space of a de-stringed tennis racquet!

Jean-Claude Belmat, the flying acrobat, will demonstrate his perfect synthesis of strength and body control. And in the two-and-a-half-hour show there’s even a juggler who can keep 10 balls in the air at once, plus hushed poetic performances to mesmerise.

The show has been receiving rave reviews since it first opened in Frankfurt three years ago, with audiences across Europe now reaching two million and including celebrities like Sir Mick Jagger, Uma Thurman and Queen Latifah.

It all comes out of a chance encounter in the African desert that the Vienna-born multimedia artist Andre had in 1973 while on holiday in Morocco.

He remembers: "I happened upon a travelling entertainer and a musical festival in Zagora, a town on the edge of the Sahara and the base for a picturesque camel brigade kept by the Royal Army. One evening, people from disparate places gathered together like figures from a fairytale and really got the crowd going."

In the following decades, he travelled to various African countries many times for work or inspiration, all the while formulating plans to offer a world platform to these astonishing entertainers.

"They learn and practise their art under the most difficult of situations, and live their dreams with a show of unbelievable will and optimism," he says.

"Our impression of Africa is one of a continent of continuous catastrophes, like war, hunger, Aids, corruption and political instability – a view shaped by the media. Yet Africa is three times as large as Europe and home to twice as many people as the United States.

"Less notice is taken of the fact that the unquestionable suffering and bitterness of life in Africa has been countered by the most remarkable artistic achievements. Afrika! Afrika! is an attempt to present cultural aspects of this amazing continent to the West.

"I decided to create a travelling platform for their art that was worthy of their talent.

"The circus art of Africa is, in many respects, incomparable to others, as dancing and acrobatics are such an integral part of it.

"Singing, music, athletics and spirituality are wound into its deep sincerity and boisterous laughing!"

Afrika! Afrika! runs until Saturday, September 6. For tickets ring 0844 847 2473.