ABOVE AND BEYOND

AUDIENCES EXPECTING Collectif AOC's La Syncope du 7 to be all about daredevil antics might be in for a shock. Billed as a 'circus for the 21st century', La Syncope starts not with bombast but in darkness - the airborne performers can only just be seen at the back of the stage.

Even when the stunts and the thumping techno soundtrack finally get going, the show is regularly held back with extensive choreography conducted across a vast dance floor. For the uninitiated, La Syncope resembles more a contemporary dance performance than a circus. 'The circus [used to be] only the trampoline and clowns and everything,' says production manager Peggy Donck. 'But the Collectif try to infuse a plurality of disciplines in it - for example, they put in music and dance to make it something other than one simple show.'

It also gives performers some respite during the 70-minute production, she says. 'You don't have to have a break every 10 minutes because it's too dangerous or anything,' she says, with a laugh.

Although La Syncope is more subdued than the spectacles staged by Le Cirque de Soleil or Streb, for example, don't underestimate the virtuosity - and cross-disciplinary sensitivities - of the Collectif, a group of young graduates from the Centre National des Arts du Cirque in Paris. Their trapeze and gravity-defying acts rival the best of any old-style circus troupes. The trampoline routines range from imitating a floppy rag doll - a routine more perilous than the description suggests - to double acts that demand precise timing and co-ordination.

What makes La Syncope gripping to watch and demanding as an artistic experience, however, are the lulls between the action. Choreographer Fatou Traore injects moments of riveting tension into the acrobatics, engaging the performers in duels on the dance floor.

However, La Syncope delivers physical feats, too. Routines - in which performers, in perfect control of their physical movements, leap onto the trampoline and bounce back to their starting position, as if jumping in reverse - refer to the name of the show. Syncope, in French as in English, means a temporary lack of consciousness due to a lack of oxygen, and the performers' leaps into the void mimic the fall after a faint.