Les arts sauts
Artistic direction: Laurence Magalhaes and Stéphane Ricordel
Creation: 1993
The Arts Sauts, a group of unusual and highly-demanding trapeze artists, embodied the spirit of air as soon as they began performing. Their second title, from a new collection co-published with Actes Sud, was an invitation to discover their shared passion and their radically innovational artistic approach to aerial acrobatics.
Since its creation in 1993, on the initiative of Laurence Magalhaes and Stéphane Ricordel, above and beyond the typical trapeze act, the compagnie Arts Sauts embodies the “spirit of air” in its overall artistic approach. It has taken trapeze and aerobatics out of their traditional context and has created a state-of-the-art space (a circus tent with a highly-unique structure) where these disciplines have become an absolute performance in their own right. A vertiginous aerial ballet that embraces the body, the voice, music and light has been created from the Company’s quest for the beauty of gestures and scenographic aesthetics.
With three exemplary productions that have toured the world several times – Les Arts Sauts (1994), Kayassine (1998) and Ola Kala (2003) – with over 1,500 performances worldwide, the Arts Sauts have become a benchmark in contemporary circus, as creators, producers, artists and managers. The Group was dissolved at the end of 2007 and recreated in a variety of forms: sedentary, with the direction of the Silvia-Monfort Theatre as a place for interdisciplinary transmission and exchange and, circus-based, with the creation of new companies.
Three of the founder members recount this human and artistic adventure, explain the way they work and their aesthetic choices.
The Arts Sauts today
After having created and animated the Arts Sauts with other protagonists for over fifteen years, Laurence de Magalhaes and Stéphane Ricordel took on the direction of the Silvia-Monfort Theatre in Paris on 1st July 2009, and initiated a multidisciplinary project (theatre, music, dance, contemporary circus).
Several members of the Arts Sauts went on to create a new troupe: VOST (Version Originale Sous-titrée), which is currently preparing a new circus-tent show, CirkVOST created in January 2010 in Elbeuf, and then on tour. This production combines a variety of aerial acrobatic techniques that embrace a poetic world inspired by comic strips and the aesthetics of movement.
Source : The Centre National des Arts du Cirque (France) ‘s website