Dancing with balls, creating illusions with the body, playing with dreams and the impossible… This is what Tangente’s next double evening offers, which combines dance, juggling and magic. With his show Affective Athleticscircus artist Jimmy Gonzalez returns to the essence of movement at the heart of his juggling practice, while choreographer Erin Hill pours into illusionism with Smoke and Mirrors. Meeting with the two artists.
“I am a circus artist, but I feel very close to the practice of dance, to the philosophy behind the choreographic approach”, explains Jimmy Gonzalez, professional juggler for nearly 10 years. Indeed, since his adolescence, Mr. Gonzalez has taken dance lessons and workshops, but considers himself above all a “mover”. “Dancers have a quality of precision and body awareness that I haven’t reached yet. So I wouldn’t dare to describe myself as a dancer,” he continues.
An intuitive marriage
Despite this, he wanted to combine his first love for juggling with his instinct as a dancer for his solo piece, Affective Athletics. An intuitive marriage, according to him: “I don’t try to integrate dance into my juggling. My way of juggling is my way of moving. »
It was in 2018 that Mr. Gonzalez began to have the idea for this performance, his first “official” creative project. “I have always done creation, but in circles undergroundlofts, happenings. This is a new stage in my career, ”explains the man who has worked for Cirque du Soleil, Les 7 Doigts and Cirque Éloize.
For Erin Hill, her play Smoke and Mirrors is also a “particular” project, which is out of its usual ways. Indeed, for her creative process, the choreographer was interested in the field of magic, of illusion. A great first for this artist who graduated from Concordia and DAS Theater in Amsterdam.
“I am very interested in suspension of disbelief [suspension of disbelief]. I wondered a lot about theatre, magic… she says. We know that the people on stage are characters, or that what is happening before our eyes is fake. Why, for a moment, do we decide to believe it? We suspend our knowledge to embark on a game and to be moved. » Mme Hill then moved closer to traditional magic, with several mentors, including Vincent Gambini in England and Joe Culpepper in Montreal. “They taught me sleight of hand and illusion tricks that I then passed on to my interpreters, Rebecca Rehder and Kelly Keenan, who perfected them,” she adds. We were talking about it around us, and we realized that everyone remembers one or two laps from their childhood! »
In Smoke and Mirrors, spectators will therefore be able to be surprised by the magic, but not only. Indeed, the room has various portions, all different from each other.
Play with illusion
“There are times when we play more with the illusion, thanks in particular to the lights. Then we also evoke the magic of everyday life, more like a thought, a reflection,” explains the designer. She also tells us that “secrets are hidden in the musical score”, but does not want to tell us more. Suspense requires.
For his part, Jimmy Gonzalez will leave a large part to improvisation on the stage of Tangente. “I’ve never done that before,” he says. We have tools with the musician, we’ve been rehearsing for a long time, but the idea is to leave ourselves a field of experimentation, to be alert, to accept what is going to happen. »
The novelty for the creator is also the format. For once, he will not perform for a five-minute juggling number, but five times more. “I feel like this is my last show. I know that’s not true, but I find it beautiful. It’s like a review after more than 20 years, taking the time to be an observer of my own practice, “says the man who won the World Circus Festival of Tomorrow in 2015.
Health crisis
For Erin Hill, the return to basics has been forced by the pandemic. Indeed, her creative process having started in 2018, she was able to present her show several times, in Amsterdam and Montreal, for a first version. But the health crisis has turned everything upside down. “Normally, the spectators go on stage, all lie down together on the ground in the dark”, she recalls. For this 2.0 version, the designer had to find other ways to create intimacy without proximity. “We work a lot with sound and lights to try to create that, but it’s very different,” she adds. Thus, she hopes to create a real “multisensory” show.
Eager to slow down the pace of tours and shows, Jimmy Gonzalez opened, in 2019, with artist friends, a multidisciplinary experimental space, Mur mur. “We needed to do our own creative projects, to explore,” he says. During the six months of existence of this place, Mr. Gonzalez wanted to get back to basics, bring together the artistic community of Montreal and exchange. “That’s when I had the idea of a project that combines juggling and dancing,” he recalls.
After exploring this idea surrounded by several jugglers, he finally decides to present a solo. “It’s really more personal, he says, referring to the title of his show, Affective Athletics. All my life, I have done a lot of sport, circus… The athletic side is anchored in my person. I wanted to decipher the emotional, affective side. What happens during physical exertion? What do I feel? »
With this creation, Jimmy Gonzalez wants to go back to basics, focusing more on the process than on the technique or the result, having the “same perspectives as a non-juggler”. “My actions feed my bodily sensations and make me move. And vice versa, he concludes. It’s a loop. »