Friday, the 27th April, was the beginning of this year's MayDay Sur gathering in Malaga [chronology en | es]. This was celebrated in the evening with an open air street-performance-cabaret show. About 200 people, some neighbours, some from the Casa Invivisible, some guests from other cities, watched the performance until 11pm.
Performance Square in Daylight
Performers
Precarious Balance
Pantomime
Stage
Filmers amongst the audience
T-Shirt Stall
Euromayday Mobilisation Poster 2004
The rather boring looking square just over the road from Casa Invisible was transformed into a site of circus arts, with juggling, balancing, theatre, pantomime, song-talk-rap performances, artistry of all kinds. Artists and workers from the show business (for expl. lightening and sound technicians) had joined forces with circus artists from La Carpa de Pizarra, the theatre group Las Poliposeidas and others to "translate" the condition of precarity into a buzzing showtime.
Breathtaking performances - a bunch of queer figures erected a pole, not unlike a maypole, on the street, held in place by some ropes stretching from the top of the pole - then three figures with builders helmets jumped, one after the other, onto the shaking pole, climbed up to the top and unfolded a banner. Artists balanced on all kinds of wobbly structures. This is not the first time that the precarious MayDay celebrations use imagery of circus arts to express situations of precarity, as the contortionist on the 2004 mobilising poster shows.
