European Companies

“Möbius”
Compagnie XY
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
January 10, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

The northern French company Compagnie XY is a group of forty acrobats who specialize in lifts. Nineteen of them perform in Möbius, the troupe’s fifth and latest piece created in collaboration with the French choreographer and dancer Rachid Ouramdane. Last weekend, it toured at the Forum Ludwigsburg.
Möbius opened sedately and silently. One by one, the barefooted artists walked on either side of the auditorium toward a stage equipped only with gray-greenish flooring. They stood scattered across it, motionless, gazing sternly at the audience. The first percussive beats set them in motion. They stretched their arms sideways like birds ready for take-off, and a blink of an eye later, the first bodies soared in the air. Pushed by multiple interlocked arms that served as a living trampoline, they flew from one group to the other, often adding extra thrilling saltos and other aerial acrobatics. Möbius’s signature feature is murmuration (i.e., the synchronized flight observable in flocks of birds), which was especially striking when these flights peaked at staggering heights as the result of three or four artists standing feet to shoulder. These towers made of stacked bodies grew as others climbed to the top step by step or, in one fell swoop, audaciously backflipped or backward somersaulted right onto the shoulders of the artist on top. Imagine propelling yourself six yards upwards and landing accurately—quite a feat! Excitement grew when the artist on top executed a single-armed handstand or headstand, planted his feet on the head below, or dove toward the safety of his colleagues’ outstretched arms like a springboard diver (where, if landing headfirst, he appeared stuck like a plug in an undersized funnel). At times, the human towers moved across the stage like long blades of grass swaying in the wind or gathered in a circle reminiscent of the Stonehenge stelae. They disassembled one by one or fell sideways as a whole to be safely caught by the rest of the group, which laid them on the floor like parts of a precious statue.
The members’ togetherness and bonding was especially stunning when a pair standing feet to shoulder was undulated in all directions like a link chain.
The difficulty of rising against gravity became evident when a woman shouldered the heavy body of her partner and slowly carried it away or when artists repeatedly faltered and slumped to the floor. In one case, a woman ran between many motionless bodies that lay on the ground like stranded seals. Others helped her to drag them away.
Though the Compagnie XY collaborates with circus troupes, Möbius is anything but a circus show. Casual black and white costumes (by Nadia Léon), subtle lighting (by Vincent Millet), and the sometimes meditative music ensured that the focus was on the inner dynamic of the group and their play with natural forces. Both were fascinating.