Review
of
SEQUENCE
8
By
Amy Tighe
Performed
by Les 7 doigts de la main
Directed
by Shana Carroll and Sebastien Soldevila
Presented
by Arts Emerson, commissioning partner
Cutler
Majestic Theatre
219
Tremont Street, Boston Theatre District
September
27 thru October 7, 2012
Recommended
for all ages
Tickets
from $25-$79
available
through ArtsEmerson.org
or 617-824-8400
Your heart is a generosity. It beats alone in your own body and in tandem
with every other heart on this planet.
Experiencing SEQUENCE 8 is as intimate and as generous as feeling
your own hopeful heart when it finally connects to the beating of our global
heart. The combination of classic circus
performances, precisely choreographed and inspired dance and superior acrobatic
skills by 8 young artists, all sly masters in their disciplines, simply opens us
to a new future. The troupe, called Les
7 doigts de la main, relies on personal strength, focus and endless joy from
the individual artists and a seamless collaboration with one another. There is almost no high tech technology, the
circus props have all been used for hundreds of years in circuses and street theatres,
and an elegantly simple set design creates a night of transformation for all.
Years ago when a lesser circus came to town, at the Boston
Garden, you could go and watch the animals out back. You couldn’t get close to them, but it was
better than the zoo. I was a clown
wannabe at the time, and hung around as much as possible to feed my facepaint
fantasies. The tigers were housed
in the back. There were four baby tigers, less than a year old in a cage
together. You could get really close to them and I spent hours watching them.
I raised kittens, and
was familiar with the play all felines share.
But this was different. I was
witnessing “play” in its original form, an element as necessary as oxygen. The tribe of tigers were fascinated with
everything and attached to nothing. One watched
us humans as we watched her, while she indifferently chewing on a sibling’s
ear, and at the same time another
sibling was capturing her tail between his large clumsy paws.
Then in an instant, they would change, stalk and pounce on the imaginary
gazelle in their cage in unison before they collapsed into corners to wash
themselves ferociously.
Sequence 8 was sort of like that, only better.
Les 7 doigts de la main
is a Montreal based troupe. Their name is a play on words – instead of the
unison of five fingers on one hand, they describe their troupe as having “beautifully
awkward dexterity” whose “initial goal was to bring circus to a human scale.” Watch out.
They do it.
This is NOT Cirque du Soliel or Ringling Brothers. Yes, many of the feats are similar to what
you have seen before—a lithe gorgeous young woman performing scary circus
miracles in a ring above the crowd, elastic acrobats throwing themselves
through impossible openings, adorable powerful young men scootling up poles as
easily as most of us breathe.
But here is what is different: This troupe takes us into
their hearts while they play. The evening starts off with a moderator thanking
us for being there. After all, he says, they would not be performers without an
audience. And, he adds, “you wouldn’t be
much of an audience without the performers—you’d be sitting staring at an empty
stage, right? “
And that’s when it starts—the performers have declared “Tag, you’re it!” Surprised, you are caught
and so you just run. They draw you into
to their performance, whether it is doing a double somersault on a bouncing
balance beam, or soaring through the theatre while being catapulted by a
see-saw, you are there. Tag, you are it,
catch them if you can. And if you can’t,
it doesn’t matter because they have taken us all in to become baby tigers at play.
We are led back to engage with the archetype of original play and deep
innocence.
The sense of intimacy and familiarity is profoundly crafted
into each artist’s performance. You
don’t really watch these performers, you experience your connection to them as
they twist, catch, fly and question common sense. Hanging upside down on a trapeze by just the
top of your foot is something we have seen before, but when this troupe performer
does it, the entire audience is arching their foot with him and feeling the
breeze in their hair as he swings. We exhaled
as one when he landed.
My well dressed neighbors in the seats next to me tell me
that they just feel love when they watch Les 7 doigts de la main. They feel the love between the performers and
they feel how the performers love their work.
I am surprised at this, a middle aged couple talking so freely about
love after the show. But, it is the
first circus I have ever seen to receive a spontaneous standing ovation, so
perhaps more than just my section neighbors feel it.
We talk about youth, about being twice the age of who we
have just seen, I think we might go on a diatribe about regrets from our own
lives and the yoga classes we should really get back to….. After all, the audience is mostly older
tonight
.
But we don’t. Something has changed. We have witnessed
mastery: the strength of practicing a
feat over and over until your body can catch a colleague dropping from 8 feet and
throw her to another’s waiting arms without anyone missing a heartbeat. We witnessed a group of artists not only
create and inhabit a world of total interdependence, but play effortlessly and
generously within it. We have felt them
open to us as playmates.
As I leave the theatre, I ask the dyed cherry-red-haired
20-something patrons who sat at the top balcony, if they felt the immediacy of
the performers. I also ask two tiny
Russian women, who are “a leetle over 70, some” tottering as they leave, what
they thought. Each and everyone replies
“I felt them” as they unconsciously
touch their hearts. “But that leetle
girl,” continues my tiny Russian new friend strongly, “I worry for her.”
Sequence 8 is an intimate and intelligent invitation to
experience our collective heart. Go, and
play, and be ready to hear your heart open.
