Exhilarating ‘Traces’ gives the circus street cred with dazzling ‘acroballetics’
JUMP THE SNARK | Brad soars over the other cast members on ‘Traces,’ going from one skateboard to another in one of the many bits of derring-do.
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Life+Style Editor
When Traces begins its show with a snarky curtain speech (encouraging you to text during the show and use flash photography), you know: This is not Cirque du Soleil. Cirque shows nuzzle up to you with a nudging wonder, transporting audiences into a mystical realm of fantasy with elaborate costumes and abstract music. Traces — at the Winspear Opera House for a two-week run to close out the current season of the Lexus Broadway Series — presents a bare-bones set with minimal costumes, while the cast of seven 20somethings (a Brit, a Parisian, two Americans and three Quebecois, including one woman) do all the work: The singing, the dancing, the acrobatics, the laughs.
For those who find circuses (even “cirques”) kind of cheesy, Traces is a tonic that may change your mind. The first number resembles a traditional modern dance performance with the performers en pointe and leaping through the air in pliés. Then the pirouettes morph into somersaults, and suddenly we have a hybrid: Acroballetics.
The performers introduce themselves by name, age, height and likes/dislikes — a Match.com profile projected on a huge screen.
That feeds the loose premise of the show, which conjures a bunch of former high school friends gathering on a neighborhood playground to relive their younger days. (All that’s missing is a Billy Joel song.) It’s the Sharks vs. the Jets, though everyone comes out a winner.
Not the least of the winners is the audience. Many of the elements of the show will be familiar to Cirque du Soleil veterans (the Cyr wheel, the hand straps), but Traces gives even those tropes street cred, similar to how shows like Stomp! turned music-making into a MacGyver sideline of creativity. The men are strapping, muscular guys who look to have spent as much time in the boxing ring as at the barre. Men salsa dance with each other flirtatiously, then turn around and goof.
Everyone will have their favorite performers and bits, though who could not be amazed at Mathieu and Lucas on the monkey bars (moving with an alacrity that would astonish even actual monkeys), or LJ soaring 12 feet in the air through a ring the size of a manhole cover, or Mason spinning tiny Valerie around his body like a baton, or Brad and Philippe back-flipping across the stage of the Winspear like tumbleweeds?
The acts of derring-do are impressive, but it’s the personality that sets Traces apart — not just of the artists, but of the show itself. There are a lot worse ways to spend 85 minutes on a warm Dallas night … in fact, there probably aren’t many more fun things to do in town right now.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 14, 2013.