In La Vrille du Chat (Cat Twist), the acrobats defy the laws of time and space. As if they were in a cartoon in which the characters turn all the laws of the physical world upside down when in a tight spot, the virtuosos of the Back Pocket team manage to manipulate and distort time. A scene just a few minutes long is slowed down, speeded up and uses stop-motion, starting up again or moving backwards and forwards. It is approached from many angles, real or imaginary, using flashbacks, memories and projections that the 7 protagonists link with the original scene. One of the formal inspirations behind La Vrille du Chat is “3 Seconds”, a comic book by Belgian author Marc-Antoine Matthieu, in which all the action takes place in just three seconds. But focusing on such a short period of time has all kinds of ramifications. On stage, the artists sometimes interpret the characters from the core scene and sometimes the outpouring of one character’s consciousness, incarnations drawn from memory, the personification of an emotion or a wish. Without hesitating to play with the burlesque, the Back Pocket team explore the impossible and the extraordinary to deconstruct and then reconstruct the original scene, like a musical theme from its infinite variations.
In short, this is a dramatic composition that calls on the resources of the circus performers themselves, foregoing all equipment. It is true writing for the circus, drawing on the popular codes of slapstick comedy. A scholarly yet uproarious composition that is conveyed through physical virtuosity alone.