The New York Times amazed by Recirquel Company Budapest

The performances of Recirquel Company Budapest captivate all spectators. They take you on a relaxing journey where you can enjoy a story told through acrobatics and ballet.

The New York Times writes about Non Solus, the latest show performed by the Recirquel Company Budapest, commenting that “a dancer becomes an acrobat, and an acrobat becomes a dancer” in this spectacle.

The American newspaper has contacted Bence Vági, Non Solus’s choreographer and director, and Renátó Illés, one of the acrobats, as the performance is on show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Non Solus (Not Alone) translates the story of the body (Gábor Zsíros) and soul (Renátó Illés) travelling together from birth to death into the language of aerial dancing, electronic music and Bach.

Vági was inspired by the transcendental silence that surrounded him while watching the sunset in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

He compared the desert to the theatre, as both are vast, empty places where one is left alone with their thoughts.

Vági told The New York Times that acrobatics and circus performances carry a lot of danger, and a good grip is extremely important, as a performer is literally holding someone else’s life in their hands. Even though training begins with a period where mats are placed underneath the tightrope, this safety aid is later removed, so acrobats are left with nothing else but focus and trust in each other. Because of the complexity of the choreography and also because of safety reasons, pairing two people for a 60-minute show is very much like pairing sportspeople for the Olympics.

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The choreographer finds that live danger makes the performance much more exciting for the audience: “In circus, you see performers doing things that you think are not possible to do. They are superheroes.”

Illés said that dangerous tricks make one an admirable and skilled acrobat, but not necessarily an exceptional performer.

Non Solus presents the intertwining of body and soul and the connection between dance and circus. Vági studied ballet and has a background in dancing, and despite great interest in the circus, he was never a member of a circus company. As he was fascinated by the mechanisms of a circus, he researched the history of the circus, eventually incorporating circus elements and the atmosphere of a circus into a dance show, creating Recirquel seven years ago. Vági claims that the circus is an ancient art form that demands and deserves a tremendous amount of respect.

He described the way the Non Solus dance is infused with the traditional circus in the following manner: “It’s a show with only two people, but actually the set multiplies everything,” he said. “It is constructed with mirrored walls that face or tilt toward the audience. So it always reflects an image of the choreography.

“Even in this show, we have the mirrors and this 360-degree perspective, so the ancient magic of circus comes back to us.”

In addition, he stated that in these past years, circus schools in Montreal, Belgium or in Budapest had allowed more and more movement, and this freedom of movement created abstraction and, with that, more story.

However, there is a significant difference between dance and circus acrobatics, even though both are theatre genres. A theatre performance cannot work without communication, but while dance can speak through its broad vocabulary thanks to the various styles, the circus is limited, since the performer is 10 metres high in the air, balancing on a tightrope: not much movement is allowed up there since balance is of key importance. Lately, the circus has become a lot like dancing, but at the end of the day, the danger factor is still there. With dancing, one can get injured, but their life is never at stake.

featured image: https://vimeo.com/315586873

Source: nytimes.com