Photo: David Levene/The Guardian.
Olivier Mathieu in Yoann Bourgeois’s “Touch.”
Today’s story is about trampoline choreography, which looks to me a bit like using the flying trapeze without a net.
But who am I to talk? Growing up, we had a trampoline on the porch with no kind of protection. A low, wood ceiling overhead. A concrete floor below. Sometimes I wonder how we managed to grow up at all.
Lyndsey Winship writes at the Guardian, “You may have seen a certain video online of a man climbing some stairs. Actually, he’s repeatedly falling from them but then magically bounces back up, weightless as a moon-walker. Out of sight is a trampoline, which gently catapults his looping, twisting body up the staircase each time he falls, turning a would-be simple journey into an epic, poetic odyssey that has caught the internet’s imagination. Pop star Pink saw it and immediately got on the phone to its creator; Martin Short even made his own version on Only Murders in the Building.
“The act is the work of French choreographer-director Yoann Bourgeois, 43, whose live performances have been touring festivals for years. But the popularity of his videos online has propelled him into new realms. …
“Some people run away to the circus; others have it arrive on their doorstep. Bourgeois’ parents separated when he was growing up in Jura, eastern France, and their house was sold to a circus group, Cirque Plume. Bourgeois was already interested in theatre (and later studied dance) and he began to train with the group. ‘In a way I was looking for a way to get back home,’ he says, via a translator. … ‘I really wanted to continue to be a child. I’ve searched for a life where I can continue to play.’ …
“What Bourgeois plays with are the invisible physical forces that surround us – gravity, tension, suspension – and the interaction between those forces, the performers’ bodies and symbolic ideas. For example in ‘Ellipse,’ the dancers are in costumes like lifesize Weebles with semi-circular bases, rocking and spinning, but never falling. … In ‘Celui Qui Tombe (He Who Falls),’ the performers stand on a wooden platform that rotates, at some speed, then tilts, forcing their bodies to lean at precarious angles to keep their balance. …
“The short piece Bourgeois is bringing to London is called ‘Passage,’ and features a revolving mirrored door and pole dancer Yvonne Smink hanging, swinging, balancing and turning the simple act of crossing a threshold into something of infinite possibilities. Much like the way sculptor Antony Gormley hit upon a universal idea in his use of the body, Bourgeois works with the same kind of directness. …
“Here he is talking about suspension: ‘In physics, suspension means the absence of weight. But if we speak about time, suspension means absolute presence. And I think this cross between absence of weight and absolute presence is like a small window on eternity. That’s what I search for: to catch the present, to intensify the present.’
“Even though Bourgeois seeks to be live in the ephemeral moment, you can see why the recorded versions have gone viral. He admits his work looks good on screen. …
“He’s reaching even more eyeballs now with his pop star collaborations. For the Harry Styles video ‘As It Was,’ Bourgeois designed another revolving platform that saw Styles and his lover being pulled together and apart. ‘Behind the superficial pop veneer of the song, there’s a great sense of despair,’ he says.
“Bourgeois designs his own stage machines, but the revolving floor is, he points out, a very old theatrical device. The question of what’s truly new in art came to the fore when he was accused of plagiarism in a video posted online comparing scenes from his work with scenes from other artists. There are some striking similarities, but Bourgeois is robust in his defense, saying that the works referenced motifs from the history of art, which he considers to be in the public domain. Many circus performers will use the same props. ‘If you use just a frame of a video, it’s easy to make a comparison,’ he says. ‘What is original is the treatment and the creative process.’ …
“What’s certain is that Bourgeois can turn universal ideas into something eye-catching that connects deeply with audiences – imbued with the wonder of circus and the grace of dance.”
More at the Guardian, here.
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