Silence! from French street arts company, Les Commandos Percu, is the headline act at Silence! festival making its Australian debut at Adelaide Fringe 2023. Held over 3 nights in Elder Park, head in for local and interstate musicians, roving performers and an array of food and wine options before the main event at 9:30pm (9pm for the Sunday night show).
Silence! may perhaps be considered a misleading name for an event full of percussion and fireworks. However, it is in the brief moments of silence between those that you contemplate what may happen next. The performance starts with the performers entering from King William Road side of Elder Park wheeling in a structure towards the banks of the Torrens, while clashing symbols and thumping on a drum. Is this a sacrifice to the Gods? A ritual? Anything is possible.
Performing on a mountain like structure comprised of industrial waste from which Les Commandos Percu create their own percussion instruments, flares and smoke emerge from all around them. For 45 minutes, we are treated to a cacophony of percussion sounds including drumming, which would be perfectly at home in a heavy metal band to the more tropical feeling very danceable beating drum. Clashing symbols and even what sounded like a cowbell were decipherable. The familiar smell of gunpowder wafts across Elder Park and we can’t help but wonder if the performers are getting high from the fumes considering they are right in the middle of them!
[caption id="attachment_14972" align="aligncenter" width="444"] (c) Matilda Marseillaise[/caption]The structure on which the artists perform lights up in red and at times in blue. Sometimes it appears like a volcano with lava flowing down its sides. Spectacular streams of brightly coloured fireworks abound, shooting skyward as if they are being freed from a heavily pressured vessel. And just as much as this is a show about the sound and the visual, it is also as its name suggests about the silence – you could see and hear the audience anticipating, wondering what might happen next when everything was silenced.
Whether you watch it from a distance and enjoy the spectacle of the sky raining in colour, or watch it up close and see all the detail in just what these pyro-musicians are creating their sounds with, Les Commandos Percu’s Silence! is no ordinary pyrotechnics show, is one for all ages and all audiences and sure to be a highlight of Adelaide Fringe 2023. Tonight is your last chance. Do not miss out!
5 CROISSANTS