#HTE

Need Some Beauty This Week? Watch These Dancers Walk Up Walls

No matter your country, background, taste in music, or political persuasion, 2016 continues to deliver disasters small and large. Escapism has its limits (just ask anyone in charge of the PokemonGo servers), but beauty can help keep our heads up. And maybe our legs? This week I found some surprising grace in gravity-defying videos by the performance group Compagnie Yoann Bourgeouis.

The French troupe’s work incorporates dance, acrobatics, miming and other circus theater techniques. 

To pull it off they use carefully designed sets, sprung with trampolines and other gravity defying tools. Here’s a longer cut of the choreography above, showing the surprising range of use a single trampoline can produce.

The group also regularly uses destabilizing elements like steep ramps and rotating platforms to add extra tension and surprise to their range of motion. 

This piece for the London International Mime festival had me transfixed, then down a set design rabbit hole (hint: the seriously cool stuff is secret):

Their site (best used in French) stresses the importance of play and games in pursuance of more “living arts"—easy principle to lose if you aren’t careful. For more on their work, performances, and workshops, check them out online.