Gravity-Defying Physical Theatre for Adelaide Festival
French Physics graduate and student of architectural acoustics Aurélien Bory was on his way to a career in science when he joined the circus and acrobatics entered his life, but his scientific background still influences his current career as a celebrated artistic director. His work is driven by an exploration of our relationship with space.
“The stage is a space,” says Bory. “It can be defined as the rectangular plane of the stage-platform and the equivalent volume of air. This space is the only medium where one cannot escape the laws of general mechanics. This particularity is important to me. Both bodies and objects are inescapably subjected to gravity. My proposition is to summon the means of the body, as well as the means of the stage, whatever they may be, to contemplate this fact. Bodies and objects both are relevant regarding gravity. The relationship between the individual and space, every single element of this relation, is what I am interested in studying on stage.”
Bory is co-founder with Olivier Alenda of Companie 111 and is also its artistic director. In an Exclusive Australian Premiere his company brings its unique production Azimut to this year’s Adelaide Festival for a short season.
The metaphysical theatre of Azimut is impossible to categorise in many ways, but its background is also unusual. Ten years ago Aurélien Bory encountered acrobats training on a Tangier beach. Together with director Sanae El Kamouni, Bory formed Le Groupe acrobatique de Tangier for these acrobats and later directed their first production, which gained critical acclaim. Azimut is Bory’s second collaboration with the group.
Arabic for ‘The Paths’ Azimut explores the spirituality of the centuries-old Sufi traditions of Moroccan acrobatics and combines this with Aurélien Bory’s modern elements of time and space, producing an eccentric yet elegant performance. It is a mysterious world in which acrobats levitate, launch towards the audience and defy gravity with illusory stunts. Like stars in the sky, the performers are suspended in space. They form human pyramids as if ascending to the heavens and scale a massive metal grid in constantly changing patterns and geometric formations.
“The issue of space raises the question of limits,” says Bory. “The limit is the unknown. It sharpens our craving for discovery. It embodies the place of creation. Our theatre is at the junction of different arts: the circus, dance, visual arts, music... but our concern to renew the form and the thrill to remain unlabelled are more important than belonging to a definite field. I'd rather the form emerged at the edge of things.”
In Azimut Adelaide’s audiences can expect to find a uniquely different coming together of diverse creative influences in a truly poetic example of physical theatre at its best.
Lesley Reed
WHEN: Friday February 27, 7.30 pm; Saturday Feb 28, 7.30 pm; Sunday March 1, 6pm.
WHERE: Adelaide Festival Theatre.
BOOKINGS: adelaidefestival.com.au or BASS 131 246.
Top two images Algaé Bory, lower image Agnes Mellon, Adelaide Festival of Arts.
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