THE BALLOON MAN

Preview: When circus and dance meet
This show promises to blow your mind

 

The Montreal troupe Les 7 doigts de la main has created a show, PSY Mind-Blowing Circus, that reflects a montage of mental conditions, from hypochondria to addiction, amnesia and agoraphobia group.
By Peter Robb
The Ottawa Citizen
June 19, 2012
The show: PSY Mind-Blowing Circus
 The company: Les 7 Doigts de la main
 When & where: June 20 to 23 at 7:30 p.m., National Arts Centre Theatre
 Tickets: $40 to $60 www.ticketmaster.ca
A contemporary circus arriving at the NAC this week promises to blow your mind — or at least explore it.
 The Montreal troupe Les 7 doigts de la main has created a show that reflects a montage of mental conditions, from hypochondria to addiction, amnesia and agoraphobia group. Each of the 11 performers in the show has a unique condition.
 The PSY in the title has many meanings, says Isabelle Chassé, one of the founders of Les 7 doigts and the current co-director — think psychoanalysis, psychotic, psyche, psycho.

She says there is no intent to demean those with mental problems. The troupe wants to explore the mind, demystify what might seem strange and threatening and even offer hope to the afflicted through the physicality inherent in circus performance. In one instance, for example, an agoraphobic is freed of her condition by way of an aerial move.
 “Psychiatrists and psychologists who have seen the show have told us they are happy with the show, happy with how we are portraying things,” she said. “We are sensitive to the fact that one in three people has enough symptoms to be considered to be dealing with a mental disorder. It is part of reality.”
 Chasé says the issue of mental illness has been a matter of artistic concern for the group for several years, but work on PSY started in 2009 and the first performance was in 2010 in Sweden. As a collective organization the decision to do the show was taken by all seven founders. It has been seen worldwide but arrives in Ottawa for the first time this week at the NAC.
 Les 7 doigts, which is made up of former performers with Cirque du Soleil who formed their own company in Montreal in 2002, has now fully emerged from the shadow of the Cirque. Their shows tour the world.
 “The essence of circus is travelling,” Chassé says.
 Currently they have eight productions on the road, and this year those productions have been seen in such diverse places as Buenos Aires, Argentina, New York and Berlin, Germany. PSY is just back from Europe and will return there after the NAC shows this week.
 The company has two new productions under construction at the same time, says Chassé. The company has been very popular in Ottawa since first appearing in 2005 at the NAC.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Preview+When+circus+dance+meet/6808280/story.html#ixzz1yKoQzpZO