Co-presented with The Cultch
Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street)
Running time: 60 minutes (no intermission)
Note: This performance contains strobe lights and is recommended for patrons aged 12 and older.
The stage as a living being: ineffable, transcendent is the atmosphere of Paradisum.
Hungary’s cirque dance company Recirquel, under the direction of the company’s artistic director and choreographer Bence Vági, brings intellectual rigour to traditional circus acts, braiding together vertiginous risk with a profound emotional core. Alive with a spiritual intelligence, Paradisum transfigures feats of strength and agility into iconographic images.
With its reference to a post-apocalyptic world, Paradisum summons archetypal figures, each engaged with the overwhelming effort of existence. Elevating aerial and groundwork, elements of stagecraft — a rippling black drape, a ladder, rings, a hoop — create otherworldly vistas. Underpinning the larger cosmological ideas with concrete manifestations, the work is both deeply grounded in the earth and yet defiant of gravity.
As the performers carve out moments of stillness and grace: the truth of the body emerges in all its primal antediluvian power. Rebirth is too limited a term: this is anima mundi (world soul).
"An extraordinary experience that lingers in the mind, a true pleasure to witness...both visually stunning and emotionally striking." - West End Best Friend
"More daring and poetic than anything you’ve experienced before." - Broadway Baby
Founded in Budapest, Hungary in 2012 by director and choreographer Bence Vági, Recirquel has by now become one of the leading contemporary circus companies in the world, representing a unique style of circus combined with dance and theatre, building upon the flair of mid-eastern European – Hungarian classical theatre culture. The productions of this pioneering company bewitch audiences worldwide with the immersive quality of the magical universes they create. Recirquel has opened the gates for contemporary circus in Hungary and carries a strong mission to acquaint audiences with this new form of performing arts.
Bence Vági
With a background in modern and classical dance, Bence Vági is a director-choreographer whose innovative approach to performing arts redefines the magic of theatre and circus in an original way for a contemporary audience. After completing his university studies in directing and choreography, he founded Recirquel in 2012. As the Artistic Director of Recirquel, he continuously seeks new creative horizons, never resting on past achievements, and has become one of the most acclaimed figures in Hungarian performing arts on the global stage.
Top image: Recirquel, Paradisum © Bálint Hirling.
