I walked into the Genesis with a $5 bag of popcorn and walked out with two aching shoulders and a powerful need to hit the gym. Performed by the immensely talented Copehagen Collective, this circus show blends dance, rhythmic music, and show stopping acrobatics into a mesmerizing hour-long performance.
The seventeen performers, male, female, and in-between, are each striking in their own ways— at once unique and indistinguishable. They crawl on each other like human furniture. It’s like watching a pit of corpses do a Viennese waltz. They’re muscle and sinew and black athleisure fabric. They hop on chests and backs, climb hand-to-hand or foot-to-shoulder, throw themselves with reckless abandon off human towers three- or four-high only to shoot back up again. They’re thrown and spun in the midst of some cataclysmic hurricane. The performers of the Copenhagen Collective seem to fear no heights nor the immense effort of reaching them. They are as relentless as ants, as graceful as minnows. They crumble into each other like sand. A woman drops off her partner headfirst and is caught, face inches above the ground, arms folded like a sulky teen repelling the force of gravity through sheer disdain. Everyone perpetually seems three seconds from dislocating every joint heretofore discovered. It’s impossible not to be a solid brick of tension in your seat.
And the trembling. My god, the trembling. You see a knee buckle and two hands shoot up to steady it. The bottom of a pyramid steps back under his burden and the whole crowd shifts, pacing backwards step by halting step, like a sexy moving trampoline. Good thing, too, because the perfection of The Genesis is its imperfection. Acrobats fell. Once in a blue moon, they broke holds or lost balance and went toppling off each other. A guy whiffed a backflip and hit the mat with a SLAP that rocked the room. He got up and threw us a peace sign and then a “rock on” sign, the biggest grin plastered to his face, and vanished back into the sea of bodies.
Not for a second did they lose their mojo. They have the kind of failure that gets the audience roaring. Muscles shaking. The hoarse voice calling “READY!”, and then a take two that had us raising the goddamn roof. Their failures are resilience crystallized— a reminder to push every limit over and over again, no matter how it aches, no matter how brutal the fall. There is a world waiting to catch you.
What a pleasure and an honour to see these dancers in action, but most of all, what a joy! Bring your family— this show quieted a screaming baby (though I don’t recommend testing it). Bring your girlfriend and have a blast (the guy next to me certainly did). Pre-crack your neck muscles in sympathy (I didn’t think a “headstand” meant a full-grown woman standing on your head).
Finally, if anyone from the Copehagen Collective happens to be reading this: PLEASE drop the workout routine. I am begging you.
The Genesis is part of Montréal Complètement Cirque which continues to July 13. For tickets to other Cirque shows, click HERE.
