Just hanging out with family and friends (Photo by Benoit Z. Leroux)

I didn’t get what I thought I was in for, but I did get a very good time.

Cirque Alfonse is a humble Québecois company: the acrobats and musicians are all either members of the Carabinier Lépine family or their friends. And Animal is a humble show that riffs — in freewheeling, often surreal ways — on farmyard animals and objects.

The skill level isn’t always dazzling. On the opening night of the company’s short Vancouver run, there were too many mistakes and redos off the top, and some of the numbers are dull. I didn’t need to see Geneviève Morin dancing around in an inflated cow costume, for instance. And the routine in which Julie Carabinier Lépine flips around a pair of sickles left me cold. It’s not like she’s juggling them, she’s just twisting her wrists and we don’t even know if the sickles are sharp.

But — and this is an enormous but — this show is ridiculously charming and there are some truly impressive human-scale skills on display. Once I let go of the idea of Cirque du Soleil-style relentless virtuosity, I realized that I was at an excellent party and I settled in. [Read more…]