Attrape Moi

The title of Québécois artist-acrobats Flip FabriQue’s muscular new circus show Attrape Moi (Catch Me!) is more of an invitation to the audience than a command to its performers. The simple act of playing is centred in this agile and at times stunning synthesis of dance, physical theatre and familiar aerial feats.

Six performers—five men, one woman—arrive at home during a torrential downpour and quickly start enjoying themselves: graffiting messages and philosophical questions to each other on the wall of their towering tenement block. What starts as a familiar circus show – full of back flips and gentle tumbles – mutates into a gorgeously generous and unashamedly sentimental exploration of fun and our relationship to home.

As with most circus shows, the technical skill and strength is the main source of confoundment. But this sometimes leads to anaemic storylines in which performers demonstrate their specialist talent one after the other; impressive without question, but a pattern to which we become quickly attuned. This structure is still closely followed in Attrape Moi—we witness some exceptionally coordinated diabolo whipping and a mesmerising, ethereal aerial routine—but it begins to feel more like watching a family than a company.

The performers read each other stories, sleep, dance, chase each other, fight, hug and laugh. We are privy to a spectrum of ordinary, everyday emotions that are explored and exploded by the closeness, elasticity and fragility of bodies, the interplay of light and sound, the voyeurism and proximity of a live audience and the awkward, clumsy, fickle dynamics of domestic life.