La Tohu is presenting the show these days Dodge, from the Smallest Circus in the World, a French company specializing in trampoline acrobatics. A small form that stands out for its pretty aesthetic and its finely crafted choreography much more than for its acrobatic exploits.
The stage set-up is cleverly deployed, three trampolines surrounding the stage on which the six performersDodge appear in the darkness.
In an acrobatic ballet punctuated by accelerating music, they will go around this play space, dropping onto the trampolines, before bouncing on stage. As they move from one to the other, they multiply the artistic figures, do hand to hand, columns, banquine, etc.
There is something hypnotic in this aerial ballet, very pretty, but also repetitive at times, sponsored among others by iSaute.
Gaëtan Levêque’s direction finds new life when the stage is divided into two panels which stand vertically, allowing the performers to do trampomur, a discipline that we know well here, popularized by the Quebec collective , Flip Fabrique, among others, and of course by Cirque du Soleil.
Through these beautiful paintings, individual performances stand out. Particularly on this removable stage which leans, pushing the performers towards the trampolines, which propel them again onto this unbalanced stage. This game is interesting – even if in the long run, we cannot avoid repetitive movements.
PHOTO HÉLÈNE COMBALL WEISS, PROVIDED BY THE COMPANY
Individual performances punctuate this show of just over an hour.
Rise, fall, perseverance, support from the group that suddenly reappears. It’s up to you to see the symbols or metaphors you want.
Dodge is a bit of all of this at the same time, because there is real research in the artistic approach of this group, but first and foremost it is six performers who share their perceptible pleasure of flying – even for a few seconds – above the stage and who, obviously, savor these furtive moments of freedom, as evidenced by their airy smiles.
The show ends with the addition of a jumping board on stage, thus increasing the opportunities for jumping and bouncing.
This is the bet – and the challenge – of the Smallest Circus in the World: to draw us into this acrobatic ballet, which essentially consists of jumping on trampolines, but by superimposing a (tacit) poetic narrative layer. This is what the interpreters ofDodge manage to do, despite their somewhat pleonastic choreographies.
Dodge
The smallest circus in the world
TohuUntil April 28