Hung From a Horse

This spring, for perhaps the first time in Hong Kong’s history, horses won’t just be for gambling purposes. During the Arts Festival, a Parisian equestrian stage company called Zingaro will be hosting their acclaimed horse and acrobatics show, “Battuta.” A kind of equestrian opera, if you will.

For over twenty years, Zingaro has been putting on their one-of-a-kind stage show to sold-out hometown crowds before finally taking it on the road. So far, they’ve toured every major city in Europe. In New York, they sold out almost instantly, and the run was extended – twice – with ticket prices shooting up US$15. Those sold out, too.

Now for the first time, the show is coming to Hong Kong. 36 horses and 57 performers have been flown in from France to perform at the Hung Home Ferry Pier Lawn, in a gladiator-like pit that acts as center-stage to both the dauntless riders and their dutiful thoroughbreds. You’ve seen the posters plastered around town – in magazines, on buses, in MTR stations. But enough hype, what’s this show really all about?

It’s best described as a combination of opera, gypsy street show, acrobatics and horse racing. “Battuta,” in particular, differs greatly from other productions Zingaro have performed, in that the humans take center stage, while the horses are used as acrobatic devices.

There’s a sense of imminent speed and danger amidst the equestrian stunts; men stand atop racing horses, swinging from side to side, performing feats of peril that have you gasping in awe and cheering in delight at the same time. Slapstick comedy and liberal doses of surreal humor add to a performance so strange and dreamlike that you step out full of energy, wondering if what you just saw was real. And that’s the point.

“The process of Zingaro is that there is no story, it’s open to the public’s interpretation,” says its creator and director, the one-named Bartabas. “The plot is never explicit, it’s always episodic. You learn something only when you are ready to receive it. Something that doesn’t touch you today but might touch you tomorrow. In this way, the audience participates in the art.”