BLOCK
when circus and dance collide
BLOCK is the encounter between two companies, NoFit State and Motionhouse and two genres, circus and dance. The collaboration between Creative Producer Ali Williams, Artistic Director Kevin Finnan, and Circus Director Paul Evans.
Twenty oversized blocks, fashioned to resemble giant breeze blocks, double as both the performance equipment and the set. Continually deconstructed and reformed, they create an infinite variety of shapes, structures and equipment to play on, move with and explore.
What happens when the equipment becomes the starting point for a physical exploration?
When dance and circus collide? When they converge, rub against each other, blend into one another?
The constant shifts of forms echo the transitory nature of our city centres, the changing landscapes of our environments and within this context, creates for a platform on which the bodies talk about change, barriers, obstacles, repetition, failures and successes.
Initially designed as a daytime performance, BLOCK incorporate skills that resonate within an outdoor context: parkour, acrobatics, gymnastics and tricking and blends them with contemporary circus and dance. It combines the quality of movement vocabularies of the two companies, their experience of highly visual creations and occupation of space.
BLOCK is resolutely urban and the modular nature of the design concept allows for maximum potential to explore different configurations and ways of interacting with the equipment.