WE go to the circus for thrills and entertainment, but Archaos, the French rock 'n' roll human circus that performed here in the Hong Kong Arts Festival recently , has thrills that border on nightmares! Archaos shocks, frightens and puts the audience on edge. The seven-year-old troupe has rejected old-fashioned circus fun and gives us instead state-of-the-art chaos, spiced with off-beat humour.
''Traditional circus is boring!'' said Pierrot Bidon, Archaos' artistic director. Hence lions, tigers, horses and clowns are replaced with ''metal clowns'' and motorcycles.
In their show ''DJ 92'', clowns strapped with scrap-metal boards and safety helmets chased each other with chainsaws, with a daredevil motorcyclist roaring in hot pursuit.
There were heart-stopping tightrope walks and high-risk stunts done without a safety net. Spectacles included street battles, fire-eating, and pyrotechnics with rock 'n' roll music on video clips.
Spectators were spellbound. Germaine Tan, 19, who attended the Archaos performance at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium, said: ''They were absolutely superb - very wild and crazy! The tightrope walkers were especially stimulating.'' One man described the show as ''loud, brash and violent entertainment, but the violence is always controlled''.
Violence? Yes, a different kind, said Bidon.