Leap of Faith
February 9th, 2007 by Katie
A performance art program by a company I had never heard of in a faraway land called Flatbush? Indeed. As New Yorkers tend to do, I trusted my instinct that this was an event I didn’t want to miss. I jumped on the downtown 3 train in a blind leap of faith.
Thankfully, the L.A.-based troupe Diavolo was on my schedule and began just as I arrived right on late at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts. They performed three dances, gracefully climbing, flipping and stunting on each other atop three different six-ft high structures. The first structure, a variety of tall doors that acted as props in a musical of a couple chasing after each other and finally falling in love. Cute and whimsical, the abstract movements provoked thought among audience members. Joy quickly transitioned to defeat as the next piece began. The conditioned athletes sprinted vertically up the second structure, a spiked wall, then slinked down grimly as morose music played.
The third and final piece took place on a boat that stood 12-feet long by six feet wide. For half an hour, the rock solid dancers used force to manipulate gravity, moving with and against the motion of a perceived ocean that threw their bodies on the floor of the deck to gain traction. The crowd hunched forward in awe before bolting up to a standing ovation.
For their encore, the Diavolo dancers staggered onto the stage and sat down with icepacks and wraps in hand, then answered questions in a townhall forum. During the intimate session, we discovered that the group had expertise in Brazilian combat-like dance capoeira, tap, jazz, gymnastics, acrobatics, aerial maneuvers and competitive cheerleading — which might explain the trust they had to share in order to jump from fourth floor heights off platforms standing six feet apart from each other. Talk about a leap of faith.