Review: Liquid limbs and mesmerizing visual magic at Recirquel's Paradisum
In DanceHouse and The Cultch copresentation, the Hungarian company is full of flowing bodies and rippling fabric
Recirquel’s Paradisum. Photos by Balint Hirling
DanceHouse and The Cultch present Paradisum at the Vancouver Playhouse to January 24
EVERYTHING FELT LIQUID as Recirquel’s Paradisum cast a spell over its noticeably hushed Vancouver audience on opening night.
The Hungarian troupe’s visually stunning meld of contemporary dance and circus acrobatics centred around a shape-shifting blue-black fabric that rippled and swelled around the performers. Sometimes it resembled a lava flow that swallowed up the performers; at others it became a primordial ooze that birthed figures in nude bodysuits or was backlit to become a bottomless cosmos. Occasionally, figures would poke up under the great swath like ominous molten monsters before dissolving into the dark sea again.
The insanely honed performers’ bodies were equally fluid, with Recirquel founder Bence Vági’s distinctive choreographic vignettes achieving a slo-mo flow that was mesmerizing. In one hand-balancing act, an upside-down woman’s legs curled like ribbons around her body—her poker-straight hair fluttering in a wind machine, and the fabric forming a deep-blue ocean wave beneath her. Later, a man suspended on straps became a blur as he spun like a whirlpool in the beautifully carved light.
Adding to the hypnotic flow was Edina Szirtes’s remarkable score, grounded in haunting cellos and echoey electroacoustic touches.
Dark, dreamlike, and existential, the loose narrative imagined a postapocalyptic world where humans were reborn from the ashes, building to a rhythmic ritual where solo performers finally gathered onstage as one. It felt profound and philosophical compared to a usual night out at contemporary circus.
Paradisum somehow felt ancient and mythological yet new. Recirquel manages to express a fresh poetic voice in the crowded category of international companies reworking circus arts. It's well worth catching for its sophisticated movement, its physical feats, and its fully realized visual magic that, while low-tech, looked anything but. 
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