© Tony Shepherd 'Transports Exceptionnels' reviews recent Compagnie Beau Geste reviews more Charlotte Kasner reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

Compagnie Beau Geste's Transports Exceptionnels goes way beyond any of that. A dancer interacting with a (humungous) digger could be circus; and it is undoubtedly acrobatic with elements of dance in too. What takes this performance beyond into theatre is the judicious use of music. Bellini, Saint-Saens and Massenet strike just the right note of melodrama, with a little help from the redoubtable Maria Callas. A less in-your-face rendition would lose the sense of scale and pathos that is needed to match the giant yellow monster. The adagio matches the seamless hydraulics that throw the human body into the shade and make it awkward by comparison.

Yes, it's as scary as circus; dancer Philippe Priasso is a long way up at times with no safety net and there are surely moments where the digger operator is blind to the dancer and disaster is courted. This is great theatre because it transcends the spectacle and danger and manipulates the audience into almost Disney-esque anthropomorphism with the digger. Most man-machine interactions in literature are dehumanising in a Metropolis, Brave New World kind of way. This makes man small by comparison but tugs at the heart strings. The sheer beauty of the smoothness of the hydraulics and the precision driving as the dancer interacts with the arm, bucket and cabin create emotion, and there are plenty of changes of pace within the adagio to sustain interest for the twenty minute duration.

If you see nothing else in the Dance Umbrella season, catch this.