Esquif

July 2018

Esquif is the name of a show created in Toulouse in Spring 2016, as the culmination of our work with fellow circus companies Cirque Inextrémiste and Basinga. It’s also the name of that rough-and-tumble record that scores the performance. We recorded the album in a flurry at the scène du Carreau, in Forbach, where we were playing a series of shows. Each track was etched like a freehand scrape on the stage floor. To leave a trace of the original performance, one that would reflect its sensory qualities, we respected as much as possible its chronology. Its haphazard trappings, a wrapping-paper accordion folded in our hands—all of this calls the circus to mind. It is an adventure both brusque and refined, always shaking us up as much as our audience. If listening and feeling entice you, we’ll send it over for some spare change.