How could you not love a show that is so relentlessly poetic and optimistic. While that could be a recipe for hokeyness, Diavolo: Architecture in Motion’s ESCAPE is anything but.
Created by Parisian Jacques Heim, who bases his company in Los Angeles, this Brisbane Festival treat is all the sweeter for being just an intense 60 minutes long. In fact, Heim promised this when he jumped up on stage to introduce his show. I say jumped, advisedly, because he is full of beans and positivity and seemed thrilled to be here in Brisbane. He said so, but they all say that don’t they?
But I believed him. He’s a Parisian and asked his opening night audience who had been to Paris, then was bowled over when the entire auditorium put their hands up. Mon Dieu! We are sophisticated here in Brisbane, Jacques.
He apologised for the show starting 15 minutes late but explained that they had been rehearsing relentlessly all day and had just finished. Fair enough.
Diavolo: Architecture in Motion is a world-renowned creative movement company that fuses contemporary dance, acrobatics, gymnastics and martial arts with large-scale, custom-engineered architectural structures. Founded in 1992 by Heim, the company uses a diverse team of dancers, athletes and gymnasts to explore the physical and emotional relationship between the human body and the environment it inhabits.
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It’s amazing stuff and as I watched, I thought, hey, this would work well with Cirque du Soleil or as a show in Vegas. After the show I went to their website and found a statement from Heim that included this.
“Independently, I also choreographed KÀ (2004) for Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas. This destination show is still a staple on the strip, featuring apparatuses inspired by Diaviolo structures and architecture.”
Makes perfect sense.
“Most recently, you may have seen my work with Diavolo opening the 2024 Grammys with Dua Lipa. I try to continuously challenge the conventional wisdom surrounding dance by pursuing new, innovative ways of storytelling and developing my unique, multi-genre movement language. This is the basis for Diavolo’s incomparable aesthetic.”
His collaborations are many and varied. What sort of territory are we dealing with here?
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I guess it’s in the vicinity of Circa and Cirque du Soleil, among others, but it’s also quite unique in the way the company uses these architectural forms, putting them together and dismantling them on stage and working in and around and inside and on top of them.
There’s a kind of giant wheel, the shell of a planet with portholes and a giant rocking deck, that is like a ship. Heim’s intermittent narration explains that it is all about the human journey and our interconnectedness and he is unashamedly poetic and sunny about human existence.
ESCAPE blends these complex, moving architectural structures with multi-talented performers to create a blood-pumping and emotional multimedia experience.
Along with Diavolo’s signature athletic movement aesthetic, ESCAPE features a collection of the company’s most famous architectural structures. Each evokes a story unique to its design, echoing themes of exploration, danger, fear, survival, resilience and connection, all brought to life through a soundtrack spanning decades and genres, from pop and EDM to rock.
Interacting with these incredible structures, the performers escape their ordinary lives into a surreal landscape of infinite possibilities, driven by extreme determination, joy and collaboration.
The performers are all brilliant and work as a cohesive unit, with some barking orders along the way as they all cooperate to create a spectacle with plenty of wow moments.
I loved their enthusiasm and Jacques Heim’s philosophical bent is refreshingly bright and hopeful. Do not miss this show!
ESCAPE continues in the Playhouse, QPAC, until September 27.
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