La toile / Canvas

We share an affinity for ineffable things and uncharted terrain; for the outer fringes of the mind and vistas yet to explore; for all those places where the seeds scattered by the winds of sheer exhilaration find room to grow. Neither of us knows where we’ll plant our tent’s pegs tonight, nor which sheets we’ll borrow and lay under our lamps to make ourselves a home ‘til tomorrow. We feel the same vertigo for the ground we left behind to walk the exacting path of the tightened rope. We feel the same joy in making the audience shiver, in tiptoeing across all that is fragile, in sensing the echoes of our own risks reverberate around us.

From all those places, we meet. From the circus to us, there is but one step—and we will take it, once again.

“Toile”: a single word, whose meanings stretch from cloth to web, canvas to tarp, and that lends its name to our show(s). With this concept, we seek to capture the meeting point between Surnatural Orchestra, its vast repertoire, its inventive disposition, and circus people in all their diversity. The meeting takes the shape of a short residency, designed to cater to the strengths of its protagonists while stimulating dialogue on the manifold possibilities for combining circus numbers and orchestral energy. Through these dialogues, universes blend until they’re impossible to tell apart, creating a show that is thoroughly unique. Performed on a one-off basis and with 20-25 people onstage, the show channels the beautiful fragility inherent to its concept.

La Toile has been performed in many guises since 2009, with members of the following companies:

Les Colporteurs, Cirque Inextremiste, Basinga (Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga), L’Immédiat, Bikes & Rabbits, Cheptel Aleikoum, Toi Dabord…

Post scriptum: An initial collaboration with Compagnie Inextrémiste ultimately led to the creation of several evolving editions of “La Toile.” All very diverse, they in turn became preambles to an original circus show: “Esquif.”