Humans 2.0 review | Hypnotizing circus ballet

The renowned Australian company Circa is back in Montreal with Humans 2.0a bewitching spectacle that relies entirely on the strength – and vulnerability – of the body of its performers.

For the tenth time since 2004, TOHU is opening its doors to this favorite troupe of the Quebec public. However, this love relationship is likely to be accentuated with the presentation of the tour de force that represents Humans 2.0.

Here, there are no sets, accessories or flamboyant costumes. The TOHU arena is limited to a simple white stage on which the light of the projectors plays. Nor is there a narrative frame or red thread to serve as links between the numbers. At Circa, the bodies of the ten acrobats are the papyrus on which everything is written.

For 70 minutes, these bodies roll and unroll, curl up to better unfold, explode in a sudden impulse before falling back to the ground, panting. These bodies which tremble under the effort, but do not break, link movements with exemplary precision, intertwining with each other in an inventive and audacious choreography which borrows at times from the vocabulary of contemporary dance.

On rare occasions, artists use apparatus for their acts: straps, a rope, a trapeze. But the latter serve more as dance partners than as accessories for climbing to the heights of TOHU. The strap number, where a performer multiplies syncopated gestures one meter from the floor, is particularly striking.

The beauty of this show also comes largely from the cohesion of the group, especially in the aerobatic and balance numbers. At Circa perhaps more than elsewhere, the acrobats need each other to rise, to fall without hurting themselves, to provoke in the spectators this shiver of concern and admiration. On an enveloping electronic music (signed Ori Lichtik), they hypnotize us by linking perfectly mastered movements without any downtime, sometimes in a cruel slowness which requires unimaginable physical strength from them.

In this very particular context where each artist holds in his hands the life of his acolytes, it however took time to feel a real complicity in the looks, in the smiles. The only exception: a carrier with Herculean strength whose radiant and constant smile clashed with the closed faces of her companions. Of all the artists, she is undoubtedly the one who won the hearts of the greatest number of spectators. For the rest, the relationship between the performers and the public remains quite cold, as if the very formal aspect of the proposal somewhat prevented the current from passing between the stage and the room.

But despite this downside, Humans 2.0 remains a striking spectacle of beauty, a veritable ode to the graceful power of the human body.