Theatre review: The 7 Fingers find vivid new metaphors for pandemic limbo in moving Out of Order
The circus innovators produce a dark carnival of aerial and other delights
Anna Kichtchenko contorts under plastic in Out of Order. Photo by Sébastien Lozé
The Cultch streams Out of Order until March 21
TWO CONTORTIONISTS writhe and arch in silhouette under plastic sheets, backlit by a threatening purply-pink glare in one of the most haunting and unforgettable acts in Out of Order.
The beautifully choreographed sequence is a perfect example of how Montreal circus mavericks The 7 Fingers (better known as Les 7 Doigts) bring edge to the acrobatic arts—taking risks that go far beyond defying gravity. Using simple, suffocating plastic, they’ve found a powerful metaphor. Breathing has become a loaded subject over the past pandemic year. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients struggle for oxygen in overwhelmed ICUs. Simply inhaling and exhaling has become a dangerous act of potential virus transmission. Meanwhile, “I can’t breathe” has become a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter activists marching against police violence.
The filmed pandemic-era production is a treat for Vancouver audiences who are by now familiar with the Montreal troupe. Through rapturously received shows like Séquence 8 and Cuisines and Confessions at the Playhouse here, they’ve made circus an intimate act—one that purposely contrasts the grand spectacle of shows like Cirque du Soleil. Les 7 Doigts humanizes aerial and acrobatic work, and that’s what makes it the perfect company to express pandemic uncertainty and isolation.
Thanks to a year of pandemic hell, we are all walking a tight rope right now, hanging in mid-air, performing a death-defying balancing act, and juggling too many batons.
In the filmed production Out of Order, the troupe, with directors Isabelle Chassé and Gypsy Snider, finds a way to reproduce the same intimacy it creates onstage. The show is shot in a simple, empty, darkened tent, with its scaffolding and lights exposed. And the group takes pains to point out there is no audience, describing their performance as “culture with no gathering”. Poignantly, the entire piece is dedicated to the displaced and unemployed cultural community, as well as to the country’s long-shuttered arts venues.
The show finds Les 7 Doigts at its most surreal and gritty. As the title tells us at the beginning of the work, “The world is upside-down, the circus is out of order.” Dressed in a motley punk-meets-Ringling array of costumes and makeup, they conjure a dystopian near-future.
It should be stressed that not all of the sequences are as dark as the exquisite dance in plastic sheets. Figures fly exhilaratingly in teeter-board numbers and jugglers toss a dizzying array of clubs. There’s resilience and triumph in these physical acts, but there’s an aching undercurrent to much of the performance. Even an elaborately choreographed game of musical chairs becomes blackly comedic, as characters fall ever-more-dramatically backwards, splatting across the floor.
There are sillier moments of slapstick and clown work—at least one extended storytelling skit about a marquis, a horse, and a stable goes on too long. But the pieces that resonate most are the wordless, purely physical acts of human struggle. Watching Antino Pansa swinging and shaking, trying to hold a handstand on a highwire, is mesmerizing. Three aerialists’ gorgeously swirling spins in dim light speak volumes to our endlessly looping existence right now. And a hand-to-hand number captures everything about the need for connection and support despite social distancing. As ever, overall, Les 7 Doigts’ choreography is as inventive and complex as anything on the contemporary-dance stage.
What keeps the show from feeling distressingly existential is the overriding feeling of empathy and humanity, expressed most literally in Out of Order’s final, affecting chorus of “We will find a way back”.
At one point the show’s melancholy ring master with the tear-like makeup jokingly tells us the troupe is offering up “our most un-essential work”. By the end of watching Out of Order, you’ll understand how incredibly necessary their work, and art, is. A bit like breathing.
Find more info and tickets here.
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