Afrika! Afrika! - Trafford Centre - 24/07/08 by Julia Taylor

Andre Heller’s Afrika! Afrika! the stunning circus featuring 100 artists from 17 different countries, reaches parts of your body other spectaculars cannot reach. Your eyes will gaze upwards to watch the incredible balance of Jean-Claude Belmat, a trapeze artist who almost reaches the top of the very high tent as do pole artists “Hakuna Matata”

Your jaw will drop open when you see Huit Huit squeeze his body through the top of a tennis racket and you will gasp at Lunga the snake lady, a contortionist who seems to swap limbs. There’ll be a lump in your throat when ‘water man’ Dickson Oppong produces a metre-high fountain from his mouth to be collected in a bowl balanced on an umbrella on his head.

You’ll clasp you hands in disbelief at the antics of Abdurazak Reshid Adem, a juggler to beat all jugglers as he keeps ten balls in the air simulateneously. His companion Dickson Oppong is an equally skilled manipulator of pots.

And that’s before I mention the stomach-churning effect of eight unicyclists playing basketball and skipping on wheels. Mary Romuald Materego and Mariam Juma Msemakweli make your mind boggle by lying on their backs balancing tables with their feet.

The strong beat of the drums and the incessant rhythms of the dancers will set your pulse racing as the audience, young and old are enveloped in the sounds and movements of Africa beautifully choreographed by George Momboye.

Even before you enter the big top and see spectacular costumes based on mythical creatures and Gods, you’ll inhale the atmosphere of that huge continent that is three times bigger than Europe. For you’ll enter tented palaces in the Moorish style with imaginative murals and carpets used by the Berbers, indigenous people of North Africa, and west of the Nile valley.

It was a new experience for me. Indeed I have never seen anything like it or been so affected. This was world class entertainment. For Afrika! Afrika! affects the most important part of the body – the heart.