International Street Show in Bangkok

The International Street Show in Bangkok was held at Lumpini Park this past weekend, as part of the celebrations of the King's birthday and Constitution Day. We walked there after Janelle's piano lesson, while Andre went for another shoot-'em-up session with his friends.

My favourite was Teatro Pavana, which started out as a small professional street theatre company but has evolved into a much sought-after troupe, combining artistes of multiple disciplines such as stilt-walkers, acrobats, musicians and dancers. For this festival, they performed under masks and costumes, inspired by the carnival of Venice. As they moved along the streets, the audience could walk along and interact with them.

Another fun act I enjoyed was the Mundo Novo Poco Dancers, Musical Puppertry masters from Japan, commanding a great parade of tiny musical circus. This show was led by only 2 big musicians using a number of music instruments. This magical parade changes all areas into a fresh and colourful arena for the greatest little parade in the world.

Mommy really enjoyed Bedlam Oz, a world class Street Show group from the UK that had performed in over 35 countries of the 5 continents. Their show 'Big Mob' was a majestic parade of 5 silver tubes, unleashing the bursts of comic energy among the crowd in every space. You need to seem them in action to really appreciate it.

Before we left, we passed by a bunch of local performers, dressed in cute animal costumes. Mommy picked up a copy of the books they were promoting; it was all in Thai, but the few words in English was a list of awards won by the author. We later found out that it was part of a local community project, translating well known books like William Steig's "Doctor De Soto" to foster good reading habits for Thai children.