Azimut
Director Aurélien Bory’s collaboration with the acrobats who perform his creation, Azimut, began ten years ago when he met the group on a Tangier beach. Azimut is their second collaborative piece together.
Aurélien Bory’s Compagnie 111 staged the Exclusive Australian Premiere of the show last Friday night, the launch night of Adelaide Festival 2015. The production continues in a very short season until 1st March.
While Azimut is quite unique it may not meet everyone’s expectations in terms of physical theatre. This is because the slow, repetitive, almost static nature of much of the show’s material is the antithesis of what most would expect of high-level acrobatics: energetic motion.
The form of acrobatics on display is influenced by centuries-old Sufi traditions and so contains a spirituality that is hypnotic and tranquil. Arabic for ‘The Paths’ Azimut combines this ancient religious aspect of Moroccan acrobatics with Director Aurélien Bory’s modern elements of time and space. Space is a concept that has interested him throughout his life, as he melds and extends his contradictory personal backgrounds in both science and circus.
The initial segment of Azimut begins in relative darkness with large womb-like bags suspended in space and moving rhythmically up to the ceiling and back to the stage. Gradually, acrobats emerge from these bags in the presence of an apparently heavily pregnant woman. Later, a delightful and funny ‘birthing’ by this woman of a seemingly unending stream of people becomes part of the segment and a highlight of the production. Humour continues to dot the performance throughout the production, including when many acrobats squeeze into a single bag.
Another highlight and the most overtly ‘physical’ period in the show is a section where acrobats perform cartwheels, landing like cats. The cartwheels have a surreal, illusory and hypnotic quality that is quite stunning.
The various components of the production are linked together by five short songs in a narrative of sorts, performed by Najib El Maïmouni Idrissi and Raïs Mohand.
One expects, even longs for, Arno Veyrat’s initial dim lighting to lift into a brighter phase as the production continues beyond its first segment, but it does not… and deliberately so. The low light contributes to a sense of illusion as acrobats swing in space, levitate near the ceiling, hang on billowing fabric, climb on each other or scale a gigantic metal grid, but for many in the audience the dimness is confusing and makes detail irritatingly difficult to see. In many ways the ghostly lighting is so distracting it inadvertently becomes the focus of the production to the detriment of the artists, but it brilliantly contrives what Director Bory wants: a mysterious, flowing space in a boundary somewhere between earth and the heavens.
Even within the show’s maximum one hour duration, parts of the production seem too long, contributed to by the lack of light and the slow, repetitive nature of some segments. The soundscape is sometimes dramatic, often building anticipation, but not necessarily resulting in something new in the performance.
It has been said by critics that perhaps Aurélien Bory’s company would benefit from a resident choreographer in order to make the most of the talents and physical capabilities of Le Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger’s acrobats. Having said that, it must be acknowledged that repetitive, drawn out movement is integral to Sufi tradition (Turkey’s Whirling Dervishes are another example) and adding different influences may not be helpful.
On opening night Azimut clearly divided the audience. At the close of the performance many in the auditorium stood and cheered, while others sat in confused silence.
The Adelaide Festival is often lauded for its capacity to entertain, challenge and enlighten. In including Azimut in this year’s lineup the Festival has been brave enough to mix all those elements together and leave audiences to make up their own minds about the result.
Lesley Reed
Top image Agnes Mellon, lower images, Algaé Bory, Adelaide Festival of Arts.
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