A celestial musical show at Hyderabad

The event ‘Celestial Carillon’ was organised as part of Bonjour India Festival 2018, by Alliance Française Hyderabad, Krishnakriti Foundation along with the support of Telangana Tourism Department. A total of 17 circus entertainers and dancers from Trans Express performed while dangling 100ft above the ground.

The music on bells is very exceptional; you don’t get to hear this every day. It is a show without time; it’s something that stops the time. There are 17 artists, 8 musicians, somebody at the big bell and we have one artist on the ground. We just got a day for the setup and to put everything together, but we did practise several times  - Nicole Ragaigne, Production Manager at Trans Express

The performance started by ringing a bell by one of a male artist, while rest five were entertaining people with their tricks and attaining their attention towards the performance. It was performed by a group of 17 ringers all dressed colourfully and playing tunes together at the same time.

The event was packed with more than 1000 people, all of whose heads were pointed upwards in sync mesmerised by the performance. When the musicians started their music the audience was puzzled and surprised; they encouraged the performers with loud cheers throughout the show. 

It was a wonderful experience for the people because it was a one of a kind performance staged for very first time in India and Hyderabad. All the artists were trying to keep people engaged with their enthralling performance. 

Speaking with The Hans India, the team of Trans Express shared about their concept of the show and their journey.

Nicole Ragaigne said, “It was started 35 years ago by a married couple Gilles and Brigitte as street performers in France which is a very common thing in their country. By doing small street shows, our fame grew in the country and we started performing in other big cities. Slowly, the size of the team also grew over the years and we started doing shows in Europe and France.

 Later, people started suggesting and encouraging us to do more, that’s when someone also suggested to do a show in India. When we decided to do a show here, we worked on the concept and saw the structure to lift performers and musicians in the air and knew it would be perfect. This is the second show of our company; the first show was in 1996. This is the second ‘Flying Machine’ created by Trans Express Company, the first one was the drummers.

I wanted to do a show with instruments in India, so I came up with this idea to do it with bells, like in a church. So, we looked for a composer, because we don’t normally perform on such music. It took us a year of preparation to bring this show together” she added.
The famous Alexander Calder is the person who has inspired the team Gilles Rhode, Brigitte Burdin, Leo Guillemaud, Nicole Ragaigne and Jean-Marc Chaix.

Sharing the concept of the show, Carillon said, “The show is an ensemble of harmonised bells on which music can be played by hand or automatically. The Bell Ringer appeared at the end of the middle-age, at first to get people’s attention on specific announcement, then to give time. 

With the strong resonating power of the bells, carillons are placed high to address a city.  An orchestra of bell players are lifted in the air to create an event within a city, the sound of bells being heard by several thousand people without any amplification is just wonderful”

“The music on bells is very exceptional; you don’t get to hear this every day. It is a show without time; it’s something that stop the time. There are 17 artists, 8 musicians, somebody at the big bell and we have one artist on the ground. We just got a day for the setup and to put everything together, but we did practice several times,” She shared.

On asking about her journey and performing in various city she added “It is amazing because you’re traveling around the world and you get to meet so many kinds of people, culture and every time you perform a show, it has the same concept but it is the people that make it different with their reactions and feedback”

Sharing about the collaboration with Bonjour India, she says, “We collaborated with them five years ago, we took five years to organise all these things and finally this year it happened. After this show, we are going to perform in Chennai and Delhi and then we will go back to France,” She concluded.