La Compagnie Transe Express

PIFA- Which I believe stands for, "Paris In Filladelphia? Arrrgh!" or something like that*, closed yesterday with a fantabulous performance by La Compagnie Transe Express- acrobatics and music on a mobile-like contraption, suspended by crane over a packed (packed) Broad St.

This was a fiendishly difficult event to photograph.  Apart from the standards (night, distance), there was constant motion and a tendency for all of the compositional elements to spread waaaaay far out (the structure bloomed outwards, such that the musicians were all on points of an eight-point star) so that a) there was a lot less light to go round and b) they just didn't combine in compelling ways very often.

So you will just have to take my word for it that this was a really spectacular, unique show.  Actually, you should take this youtube video's word for it, because as cool as the apparatus, the acrobatics, and even the location was, it was the music that made it.  Ethereal, whimsical and ever so French.


*In reality it is, as you might guess, the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.  First annual, perhaps?  All I know is that is intended to celebrate the creative explosion of early 20th century Paris, specifically the 100 year anniversary of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (and its accompanying riot).