The 1998 Dublin Theatre Festival opened last night with a power-house performance by a driving band of voices, strings, wind instruments and tympani stretched across a ramp upstage and, on a thick green mat downstage, a group of 16 youthful dancers, tumblers, jugglers and acrobats of beguiling charm. Lithe and lissome at times to the point of contortion, they pound through their 1 1/2-hour programme with sustained energy and great good humour.
The most elaborately sophisticated piece of equipment on stage is a mono-cycle. The rest of the props are utterly simple: some shields and spears here and there, a plethora of balls, bats, straw hats, fiery batons and colourful costumes. It's not that they demonstrate any very novel circus acrobatics or tricks: it's that they do everything in a novel and highly collaborative manner, whether juggling items, building pyramids of beautiful bodies or tumbling all over the stage. It is in the minds and bodies that the success lies, in the dancing which clearly has its origin in Ethiopian art yet can sometimes conjure the sort of ensemble performance that might well have come from a Busby Berkely movie, and in the easygoing light humour touching everything they do.
When a particular trick doesn't quite come off, they shrug, smile and sometimes do it again and sometimes just carry on to the next. What looks, near the end, to be starting as a war dance between the men is quickly converted by the women into a celebration of peace. And, while the energy never explodes, neither does it ever flag. Alas, they are with us for only three days - a very brief tonic.
Performances tonight at 8 p.m. and tomorrow at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. Booking on (01) 874 8525 or (01) 677 1717.