It is a long-term update that will continue until April 16th. The update is due to the connections between the national circus center and this company specializing in high-flying trapeze, heir to Arts Sauts. Based in La Grand-Combe, in Gard, the company regularly performs in Boulazac, where it has presented most of its creations, from its first show, “Pipyickle,” to “Pigments” during the summer of 2023. Today, the Agora is co-producing “TRAXXx.”
“We continue to fly in the air,” observes Benoît Belleville, founder of CirkVOST and director of the show. Eleven acrobats (six men, five women) will perform on a monumental structure, accompanied by three musicians playing an original score.
As the title suggests, “TRAXXx” will focus on traces. But it goes further. “Usually, we create our shows based on the structure and scenography of acrobatics. This time, we started with a question. How does acrobatics leave its own traces?” adds Benoît Belleville.
A reflection was carried out with Hélène Soulié, the dramaturge, who also co-directs the show. “Our discipline draws from the body’s memory, from the gesture’s memory to question our place and heritage. We are not trying to engrave the past, but to inhabit it, to transform it to surpass it.”
The show, presented frontally, will unfold on multiple levels. On the ground, on an intermediate platform where the musicians will be, and in the air, between 9 and 13 meters high.
“TRAXXx” will start at the bottom with a banquet in a sinister atmosphere symbolizing the old world. Then chaos will organize in an upward movement. The acrobats will engage in an aerial ballet, leaving new traces expressing their desire to change things.
These traces will be materialized by wool, colored powders, smoke, and lighting effects that will gradually fade away. But they will leave room to imagine another reality.
Creation, tableau development, rehearsals, work sessions are organized every day, morning and afternoon, sometimes with external collaborations. Germain Guillemot, a former member of Arts Sauts, is in charge of designing the acrobatics. And in early March, a member of the Käfig company by Mourad Merzouki is expected to join.
The schedule for “TRAXXx” is already full with performances scheduled until 2028. The show will come back to Boulazac in that year. But a preview will be available in April 2026, during a residency showing under the big top in Lamoura.
