Whilst suffering a broken collarbone from a stunt gone wrong and hence not able to juggle, our Belgian acrobat persuades the keeper’s daughter to come to his house and teach him to play the piano as beautifully as she can. The date was set, but the lesson was never given. Instead, they fell in love, and a year later developed a circus routine that they could tour together: he, the acrobat and she, the pianist. This is the true story of D’irque and Fien. A decade later and the pair are finally bringing that original show, Oh Suivant!, all the way down to the stages of Melbourne.
The original development of Oh Suivant! was as unexpected as its resulting success. D’irque was looking for a new performance idea after having spent the previous few years touring solo routines. His wife Fien, who was at that point uninvolved in D’irque’s acrobatics remembers, “Actually the creation of the show happened at the house, in the kitchen. He started playing with the spoons and a cup and a table and balancing on a chair. Then it came to the music, we had this piano in the house, and it was just all very spontaneous.”
A spontaneity that the show has managed to keep even after ten years all across the world, due in part to the fact that there is no particular narrative. It is a situational performance that really could just be a circus artist at home, playing around in his environment – juggling, jumping and precariously balancing on the most dangerous perch he can find – while his wife plays the piano to soundtrack his antics.
“It was made especially without [a storyline],” D’irque explains. “It’s very visual. It’s very interactive with the public. There’s a lot of participation, a lot of playing with the audience, a lot of improvisation.”
However, Oh Suivant! is strictly, intentionally and entirely non-verbal. It is a show which harks back to the time when slapstick reigned supreme and Chaplin was king of the mountain. “We don’t speak in the show,” Fien explains, “but actually it’s much better that way. In the beginning, with the other shows, [D’irque] spoke and it added a certain charm. But when you don’t speak, it’s more important to be visual and more involved. People get more involved, because they need to see you and they need to be there.” D’irque agrees, “I prefer to have contact with the public using mime and body gestures [rather] than with text. It’s much more rich.”
Melburnians are actually lucky to be able to see Oh Suivant! at all. D’irque and Fien rarely tour the show. Their newest production, Carrousel des Moutons, is what they usually perform these days. In fact, their Oh Suivant! shows in Melbourne will likely be some of the last. And then work can begin on developing something new again. “I think the flight to Melbourne, we’re going to have enough time to think about it,” Fien says, “and to write a lot of things down. By the time we come back [to Belgium], we can start making material and practising.” Although, spending as much as one third of each year performing means the development process will take a few years yet.
By that time though, perhaps their young daughter Whoopi might be old enough to join her mum and dad on stage. Fien lights up when she speaks of the daughter the couple adopted only two years ago. “She was three days old when we went to [get her from] the hospital, and she has been with us all the time since. She’s been travelling with us since she was ten days old, she must have seen the show hundreds of times by now.” Naturally, Whoopi is their biggest fan. “She’s always helping,” Fien gushes. “She’s very into acrobatics at the moment. When D’irque starts warming up, she sits next to him doing all the warm ups as well.” So watch that adorable space.
D’irque and Fien (now with Whoopi in tow) have taken their act across lands and over seas, from Ghana to Japan to Spain and almost everywhere in between. But after ten years, it’s their first trip to this corner of the globe, and they’re as excited about seeing Australia as they are about seeing the sun. “In Belgium it’s raining and it’s cold and they’re announcing snow storms for this weekend,” Fiend squirms, “so we’re so happy to be on a plane, going to the sun.” I warn them, 40 degrees isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They don’t care.
“We’re not excited for the people, not for the culture, but for the weather,” D’irque jokes. “But no, we’re very looking forward to it. We do a lot of [audience] participation and we’re looking forward to how Australians will react: are they intelligent? Are they wild? Are they shy?” Another warning: Australian’s are definitely not shy. Fien laughs. “They’re all like the Australian friends that we have then.”
BY KATE MCCARTEN
