“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
This quote from Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci is projected onto the opening screen before the performance commenced. The first half of the show is titled Endings, and featured songs from Austrian composer Franz Schubert as well as piercing industrial and electronic compositions by Klara Lewis. The combination of the opening quote, song choices and theme sharply informed me that QPAC’s categorisation “Circus & Physical” may have been an understatement. As the quote faded, actor/English tenor Robert Murray, dressed in homeless garb, entered to the left of the stage clutching a walking stick and singing the first of Schubert’s emotional ballads accompanied by pianist Tamara Anna Cislowska.
To the right of the stage is our first introduction to one of Circa’s acrobatic, body contorting performers. As Murray belts out the opening number I am transfixed on the acrobat writhing on the floor, making almost involuntary spasms with her hips and legs as her body tries to learn their abilities for the first time, like an insect emerging from a crystallis. She snaps her legs over her shoulders in ways that make the audience grimace, and slowly finds herself learning to stand on her own two legs as if for the first time, I unfortunately could not find the performers name and she was my personal favourite from the Circa group.
The first half of the show featured an inflated plastic scrim that often imprisons the Circa group and invokes claustrophobia as they dance and writhe their way trapped inside the confinement. One particular performance involved a single performer inside the quarantine that is slowly shrinking around him as he performs astonishing backflip kicks attempting to allow himself some space before he is swallowed up inside the impending collapse of his enclosure.
En Masse is a French term, which means in one group or body; all together, and it is in these moments the Circa performers are at their best. Intricately executing incredible choreography, it left me wondering if there was room for interpretation in their moves, as there were so many different exchanges to give each performer, it must have been a gruelling pre-production to get the show stage ready. The category of ‘circus’ is a little misleading to the uninitiated as I did expect props to help propel the acrobats across the stage but quickly came to understand En Masse is a complex and different type of beast, that falls more into experimental acrobatics per se.
Between the contortions and demonic convulsions the more impressive moves from the group come from the sheer strength of each dancer as some parade the stage carrying multiple performers on their arms whilst others balance multiple performers on their head before rolling forward and hurling their human luggage plunging towards the floor leaving the audience in literal gasp. The first half ended faster than I had expected and the second half Beginnings is perhaps the more intense counterpart as composer Igor Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ is performed by two pianists with Michael Kieran Harvey joining Cislowska and the result is terrifically manic, which left me feeling anxious and uneasy at times.
There are recurring themes and images of growth, as the acrobats climb atop one another, with one particularly impressive act involving one of the female performers walking on an ascending staircase of hands that climaxes with her thrust as high into the air as the other arms can hold her. Whilst there were plenty of themes displayed I also enjoyed that the performance was open enough for interpretation as well. I conjured up the idea that the acrobats were subjects of some government testing, hence the confinement imagery. There were also plenty of displays of the performers bodies being contorted to an extreme degree, struggling and twisting in pain.
En Masse is an incredible performance that challenges the concepts of what an acrobatic, circus style theatre performance can be. It’s edgy, challenging and somewhat bleak whilst succeeding in being experimental, fun and thoroughly enjoyable.
19-22 September
QPAC, Playhouse
Thomas Harrison