For its first visit to Quebec, the circus La Putyka, from Prague, has its four artists walk, trot, dance, “jogg” or run on a large treadmill. By heating up its show with all the woods of the body (singing, anecdotes, dance, music, physical risk, few great acrobatics), the troupe tackles the time that flies or slows down, speed and inertia. With an impeccable narrative curve and its mix of genres, Runners recalls the golden years of dance-theatre.
Because what marks Runners, it’s the high-level multidisciplinary work and the way it nurtures a very well-drawn dramatic curve. This explains why memories of pieces from Carbone 14 or Pigeons International arose during the show. By Pina Bausch, even if the comparison is a bit strong.
We take a liking to each of the performers. They dance wonderfully (Dora Sulženko Hoštová, Sabina Bočková) the very physical choreographies signed Hoštová, which make you nostalgic, because they keep a 1990 tint.
They (Ethan Law, Viktor Černický) do acrobatics — cycling, hoop — where the difficulty lies in finding stability against the treadmill. All tell. The music is excellent. Bočková, moreover, sings (on the treadmill, while dancing…), and very well.
There is in Runners, few risky acrobatics – we saw spectators come out, perhaps dissatisfied. And it is a journalist specializing in dance who signs this text, accustomed to being satisfied with fine, even discreet body work; or, as here, a high-speed race that becomes the event.
The constant negotiation of the artists with the conveyor belt, which limits their playing space, their clearance, their possibility of error, which requires them to maintain extreme velocity and stability, often with accessories, is a real increase in difficulty. physical proposals. It increases their presence.
We see them working, readjusting, struggling, deciding whether or not to give up. If the risk of falling is real, the limited height modulates the consequences. And Runners comes here to settle an ethical question of the circus.
Seeing circus artists risking their lives to entertain spectators in an escalation of virtuosity and danger is difficult to reconcile with respect for the longevity of the artist’s career and his health. Here, we shift the difficulty. The required physical precision is equal; the result is perhaps less spectacular: it is much more rooted in people. This humanity emanates from all aspects of the show.
The continuous rolling of the carpet, this kind of moving immobility that it allows, has an effect on the spatiality, on the space, of which we feel the horizontal axis much more. We also considered Sideways Rain, by Guilherme Bothelo (FTA 2012), who created this perception without mechanics. And, of course, to the work of Jacques Poulin-Denis, a local choreographer who has been using a treadmill since 2017.
Runners is it more of a dance? One thing is certain, it’s a very good show, open to the public and intelligent, backed by music and two wonderful musicians (and a Tohu sound system for once that’s not execrable). Run there to see them run.
The dance (rolling) carpet