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Warning: Latecomers may have to enter the auditorium through a fairly small refrigerator and cross the spacious Palace of Fine Arts stage in full view of the audience accompanied by a woman in her underwear. But not to worry. Gypsy Snider is a model of courteous consideration as the onstage usher- hostess. And informality is a prime component of the gently unorthodox, intelligently wry and breathtakingly skillful wonder of the "new circus" experience called "7 Fingers." The annual circus offering at the Palace, a holiday tradition started by the Pickle Family Circus decades ago, "7 Fingers" is one of the brightest, most original such concoctions in a long time. The show that opened Wednesday is the U.S. premiere engagement of Les 7 Doigts de la Main (the seven fingers of the hand) from Montreal, a collective of seven young circus artists, all former featured performers with Cirque du Soleil. Two of the seven are veterans, from childhood, of the Pickle Family -- Snider, daughter of Pickle co-founder Peggy Snider, and Shana Carroll, whose international trapeze career has long been chronicled in the column written in this paper by her father, Jon. So the circus roots of the troupe run deep ("Fingers" is being presented here by the primary keeper of the Pickle flame, Circus Center, which runs the San Francisco School of Circus Arts). But the show is as refreshingly new as one would hope from a company a little more than a year old. Created by the seven performers and musical director DJ Pocket, "Fingers" is impressive artistry wrapped in a charmingly deceptive casual package. Individual acts, each a display of well-honed circus skills in an offbeat twist, emerge ingeniously from what looks kind of like a group of artists lounging about their collective loft in their idiosyncratic underwear. André Labbé's set is a mishmash home unit with free-standing bathtub, large TV, two armchairs by a bookcase filled with shoes, a trapeze hammock and a kitchen featuring that walk-through fridge. Everything unfolds at what seems like a casual pace. But the unstructured facade conceals a very tight structure of break-out acts punctuated by remarkably beguiling, eclectic and inventive (uncredited) choreography and often accompanied by the ingenious video artistry of Olivier Tétreault. It's all so apparently informal but engrossing that it's a shock, at the end, to realize that it has been going on for 100 minutes without an intermission. Lean, boyish Patrick Léonard gets the show off to a strangely enchanting start with a wild slapstick dance-battle with a set of soft stairs. He doesn't exactly return later -- like all the Fingers, Léonard is a constant, endlessly fascinating presence -- but he bursts out later to perform astonishing "diabolo" (that's the wooden spool tossed and juggled on a string between two sticks) and acrobatic feats in tandem with husky, deadpan Sébastien Soldevila. Soldevila provides the solid, sensitively tuned anchor for the impressive hand and full-body balancing of Faon Shane, who seems weightless in her cantilevered positions. After Snider's casual and comely juggling of a fearfully sharp, large knife, Shane takes to the air with a remarkably unusual and beautifully executed aerial routine in three long, heavy chain loops. Samuel Tétreault closes the show with another expressive and skillful hand- balancing act. Carroll -- who, like Snider, enhances the proceedings with some lovely, sultry crooning -- takes to the air in two stunning trapeze routines. Her static trapeze act is blithely balletic, its daredevil elements nicely leavened with humor. Her swinging trapeze is almost heart-stopping in its skill, abrupt falls and catches and grace. Equally breathtaking are the acrobatic aerial twists, slips and contortions of the astonishingly limber Isabelle Chassé. Pocket, as much an accomplished and melodious singer and mouth percussionist as eclectic DJ, provides enchanting accompaniment throughout, supplemented at times by Léonard on ukulele. Jean Laurin's atmospheric lights subtly enhance the focus on individual acts. The total package is just as impressive as any of the individual acts, which is something of a testament to what "Fingers" represents in the "new circus" movement. This is the third generation
of the small-circus revival that began with the Pickle Family 30 years
ago and that evolved into the new-wave second generation best known
in its polished, now almost mass-produced Cirque du Soleil mode. Les
7 Doigts gives us a whole new look. If this is the circus of the 21st
century, things are looking up. 7
Fingers circus has a firm grip on quirky, homespun fun SOME audience members entered through the lobby doors. Others came through the refrigerator on stage. That's just one of the surreal flourishes to be found in the American debut of the Canadian circus troupe 7 Fingers. The troupe's actual name is Les 7 doigts de la main or "the seven fingers of the hand," but that's simply too French for American audiences. Instead of presenting the usual Pickle Circus holiday show this year, the Circus Center is hosting 7 Fingers at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts Theatre. But it's not like this French-Canadian company just randomly appeared. Two of its members, Berkeley native Shana Carroll and San Francisco native Gypsy Snider, are both former Pickle Circus members. Last year, the two women collaborated as choreographer and director respectively of the wonderful Pickle production "Circumstance." As most people know by now, the circus ain't what it used to be. That is to say the three-ring, animal-centered spectacles of the past have passed. In their place is "cirque nouvelle," an artsy new, animal-free circus popularized by Cirque du Soleil, which just happens to be concluding the Bay Area run of "Alegria" in San Francisco this weekend. Think of 7 Fingers as the spawn of Cirque du Soleil -- the rebellious teenager anxious to do things in a distinctly individual way. Where Cirque is slick, pretty and impersonal, 7 Fingers is lumpy, likable and intimate. Not as lyrical or as disarming as Cirque Eloize, another French-Canadian troupe that has made occasional visits to the Bay Area, the more up-front 7 Fingers has something of a rock'n' roll sensibility occasionally relieved by moments of grace and beauty. The seven members of the company -- Carroll, Snider, Patrick Leonard, Isabelle Chasse, Sebastien Soldevila, Faon Shane and Samuel Tetreault -- are sort of the surreal circus version of "Friends." We find the performers lounging around a fanciful loft (set by Andre Labbe, lights by Jean Laurin) in their T-shirts and underpants. They're bored, so they turn on the TV. After some channel surfing, they settle on a weather report. From there, they erupt into a full-blown dance number set to thumping music spun by DJ Pocket at the rear of the stage. Yes, this is a circus with a DJ. He scratches, he beat boxes and he even makes like Bobby McFerrin on some wordless songs. There's a definite hip factor to this 90-minute show with its broad musical palette and video projections. Oh yes, and the people are pretty cool, too. Each of the performers has at least one highlighted solo that flows nicely out of the ensemble action, so the show doesn't feel like your average stunt-clown-stunt kind of circus. It has a more, dare we say it, organic feel. Carroll has two solos on the trapeze -- one that moves, one that doesn't -- and both are impressive. Tetreault's hand balancing act, though too long, is an incredible display of graceful strength. And Chasse's modern dance-meets-contortion number is all the more amazing because she performs it in the dark with flashlights attached to her body. Leonard and Soldevila are more clownish than the other performers, but they also do some thrilling things with string and spools, and Leonard's buffoonish character does some giggle-inducing physical comedy with a pillow shaped as a small staircase. This troupe has a funky personality that flashes fresh! and fun! which makes it rather hard to really connect with the performers. Snider addresses the audience in a spiel about apples and pleasure, but she doesn't really hit her stride until her sword dance, which nicely blends comedy with some deft juggling. There's an attempt at audience interaction before the show as patrons
come through the fridge, and again at the end when everyone is invited
back on stage to share some apple pie.You'll never find Cirque du Soleil
doing anything as homespun as that. "...the exceptional
show les 7 doigts de la Main. This refined show, conceived, directed,
and performed by seven young circus artists, exudes originality, humor,
and creative wit..." "One of the
best shows of the decade" "We were ripe
for another innovation in the world of circus. Seven young, "Les 7 doigts
de la Main: genius...a fascinating and captivating loft party." "These seven
loft tenants will have to buy themselves a caravan, because soon the
whole world will be wanting them!" "The entire
show was amazing. We saw it four times. ...a wild triumph…
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