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Gravity and Other Myths:
Ashleigh Pearce (center) balances above the audience as company member Jacob Randell (left) assists her from below. Photo Credit: Maike Schulz
Gravity and Other Myths: A Simple Space
By R Pikser
A Simple Space is the second production of the group Gravity and Other Myths. We can only hope the first production, and many more, come to New York.
Acrobatics is unforgiving. Either the performers can do the tricks or they cannot. Some tricks are harder than others and some acrobats are more skilled than others. That much is always obvious. What is not obvious is the choice to allow the audience to perceive the process of construction and to watch the development of one part of the show into another. Something else that is not obvious is to allow the audience to see and to participate in the intimacy that working physically with others engenders, even more so when that physical work is dangerous. This attention to process and to audience integration, and the willingness to be open, are evident in the performance of A Simple Space, even if one never reads the program notes by the co–creators of this young Australian company. These goals of the creators and the performers give A Simple Space a very different feeling from most acrobatic performances, which are generally focused on dazzling, not including, the audience.
Photo
Credit: Maike Schulz
The stage space for this production is, as the name of the show says, simple. The floor is covered with a furry black carpet and four slender poles with small, intense, white lights stand at its corners. The lights are turned on or off by the performers to highlight certain moments or to cover the entire playing area.
The performance itself proceeds in sections, the first one based on a trust exercise familiar to actors - one person falls straight backwards without bending and the task of the partner is to catch the first person. But in the show, after the first few falls, the entire stage is suddenly filled with people calling out, “Falling,” then dropping back and being caught, each at a slightly different time. We have the feeling of a sort of controlled chaos. Then we notice that the fallers are no longer in simple couples. Now the performers are falling from greater and greater heights, having climbed ever higher, on shoulders, or on shoulders of those balancing on shoulders, for instance. The catchers are no longer single people, but groups, and the catches themselves become more and more complicated. At no time do the performers pause for applause. They just do their work and obviously enjoy themselves and each other, without being obvious about it. The acrobats are not performing for us; They are allowing us to be present as they do the work they so clearly enjoy.
Photo
Credit: Maike Schulz
Some other sections of the show involve the audience. In one of these, people are invited up onto the stage to lie down on their backs, in a circle, heads to the center, surrounding a circular wooden disc. On the disc are three metal poles and on these is an acrobat who balances on one, two, or three of them. After a number of different balances, she walks on the lifted hands of her fellow acrobats, still on their backs and dispersed among the audience members, then starts to walk on the lifted hands of the audience members, too, adults and children, adjusting the support of her weight as necessary.
Another audience participation moment comes during the solo of the percussionist, Elliot Zoerner. Mr. Zoerner is not merely an accompanist for the group: He is one of the co-founders of Gravity and Other Myths, one of the co-directors of A Simple Space, and, with the participation of the acrobats, the composer of the soundtrack, as well as the on-stage drummer. His drumming and the soundtrack are not only integral to the performance, they seem at times to drive the energy of the show. In his solo section, Mr. Zoerner steps forward from his drums and sound instruments, into the performance space, and plays his body. His body percussion is imaginative both rhythmically and in the different ways he finds to bring forth the sound; Here, also, the audience is invited to join in, this time rhythmically. Once again, the audience members can partake of something larger than themselves.
A Simple Space is a living example of the beauty that cooperative effort, on the part of creators and performers, can produce. To then go further and show the audience how they, too, can learn to cooperate and the special feelings such participation engenders, is to offer a gateway into the creation of a better world. Though A Simple Space lasts under an hour, it is just the right length to leave the audience exhilarated, full of life, and different from the way they were when they walked into the space. A Simple Space is actually profound.
Gravity and Other Myths: A Simple Space February 6th-24th, 2019 New Victory Theater 209 W. 42nd Street New York, NY 10036 Tickets $22-$49 NewVictory.org 646 223 3010 |
