[2015165] A Simple Space
Gravity & Other Myths @ Royal Croquet Club – The Menagerie
1:00pm, Sun 15 Mar 2015
What can I say about A Simple Space that I haven’t said before? I ran out of superlatives ages ago, and my writing skills just can’t communicate the sense of joy and wonder that the guys & girls of Gravity & Other Myths bring to the stage. Ever since I first saw Freefall (still one of my favourite posts on this site), I’ve been hopelessly smitten by their company and body of work… so I was chuffed to see so many people filing into The Menagerie: a full house. So utterly, utterly happy for them.
But what can I say about this performance? They kick off with a super high-energy start – a flurry of tumbles and throws with enough space for each trick to breath and be acknowledged – before falling into the now-familiar brace of acro-games: strip-skipping, breath-holding versus handstand, the ball pelt, and so on. Jascha Boyce’s floor-to-triple climb is still stunning, and the segment where Rhiannon Cave-Walker and Jascha are thrown around and flung over the inner crowd is true heart-in-mouth stuff. And new GOMmer, Brit Daniel Liddiard, adds even more strength and balance to GOM’s repertoire as he jumps from back to back to shoulder to back of the rest of the crew.
And, once again, I wind up constantly mopping my eyes throughout the performance… because I was just weeping from the sheer joy and spectacle of A Simple Space. This act just somehow triggers this overwhelming emotional response in me… I love it. Love love love it. And I cannot understand how GOM keep improving the show, making it more and more polished… and yet manage to keep all the things that I like about it – the grit, the realness, the humanity – intact.
They deserve every decibel of applause that the audience launched at them.
As we left The Menagerie, some of the GOMmers were waiting outside, thanking the audience: I saw Triton and immediately thanked him (once again). He smiled, and returned the thanks… but that felt inappropriate. I offered him a hug of thanks – no, he protested, there’s too much sweat. Bugger that, I said, give me a big bear hug, which he did… and then I had to walk away, because (once again) I had welled up with tears of joy and the last vestige of my manliness was that I don’t want other men to see me cry.
…God I love this show.
(165) A Simple Space: Easily the best acrobatic act. Amazing and human and polished and I'm WEEPING TEARS OF JOY. AGAIN. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 15, 2015
But sometimes one tweet is not enough to get the point across:
Seriously – weeping through happiness. I'm always amazed how @GOM_Circus keep improving an already best-of-breed act. Love them SO much.
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 15, 2015