Diavolo performs daringly on the edge
An earthquake changed the direction of Jacques Heim's life.
The French-born artistic director of innovative dance troupe Diavolo was living in Los Angeles 15 years ago when his home was shaken by a serious tremor.
“I was living in an apartment complex and didn't know any of my neighbors,” Heim says. “All of a sudden, everyone was outside and were were sharing flashlights, blankets and food. I realized that when you put people in a state of survival, they all come together.”
He applied that concept to the dance troupe he had started, and things began happening.
“I wanted to put dancers in a danger
Diavolo: Architecture in Motion
zone, because humans will work together to survive together,” he says. “They come together stronger as one community.”
Heim was was hired by Cirque du Soleil to choreograph “Ka” in Las Vegas. Then his choreography appeared on BBC America's “Dancing with the Stars” and Bravo's “Step It Up and Dance.” In 2017, Diavolo was seen by 5 million people as a Top 10 finalist on Season 12 of “America's Got Talent.”
Diavolo brings its gravity-defying dance troupe to the State Theatre in Easton today.
Diavolo presents a fusion of extreme modern dance, acrobatics and gymnastics. Its works are metaphors for humanity's everyday struggles. The dancers perform on and around Diavolo's meticulously designed architectural structures.
The show will include the group's signature work, “Trajectoire,” and a new piece called “Voyage.” The performances are done to the music of electronic artists
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Moby and The Crystal Method, and modern American composer Nathan Wang.
Heim, who was born in Paris, was more interested in theater than dance as a youth.
“I was a rebel,” Heim says. “I was kicked out of six different schools in Paris. Then I started a street theater troupe acting on top of cars and I got arrested.”
Heim’s parents decided it would be safer to send him to the United States and he ended up at Middlebury College in Vermont.
“I was trying to do theater, but my English was so bad no one could understand me,” Heim says. “Someone told me to go to the dance department because there you don’t have to speak English. I fell in love with the universal language called dance.”
Heim then headed to the West Coast to study dance and choreography at California Institute of the Arts. It’s where, he says, “everybody starts a dance company.”
He says his other fascination was with structures and architecture.
“I love architecture but never had the patience to study it,” Heim says. “But I saw that our architectural environment affects us all.”
His idea for a dance troupe was to combine movement and architecture by having his dancers explore the relationship between the human body and its architectural environment by performing on large structures. He calls himself an “architect of movement.”
Heim says if he was to be asked to choreograph a dance and was confronted with an empty stage, he would be lost.
“As soon as you put structure on the stage, suddenly I see a relationship, a movement,” he says. “It is very visceral and very visual.”
Heim says the style of dance is physically demanding and very collaborative.
“We are very much the NFL of dance,” Heim says. “We practice like football players. You have to be a part of a team, because everybody works with one another.”
He says his dancers helped choreograph “Voyage,” inspired by space travel and the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. He says it draws from the idea that all humans are like explorers.
“We are searching through life but don’t always know where we are going,” he says. “In it, a young woman is searching for herself and wants to get away through her dreams.”
He says the dancers perform on huge wheel-like structures and the effect is very surreal.
In “Trajectoire,” the performers interact with a large curved structure Heim compares to an “abstract part of galleon.” The piece rocks back and forth and catapults dancers into the air.
“It’s all about finding a balance in your life and being inspired by yourself,” Heim says. “All the answers are inside you.”
Heim has a secret: His talent is in his head. He doesn’t dance.
“I am the most unflexible artistic director you would ever meet,” he says. “I am like the black sheep of dance. I can’t even touch my toes.”
For that he has a talented troupe of 12 dancers. He says because of the physical demands of the dancing, 10 dancers are on stage at a time, providing time for dancers to rest.
Heim also started the Diavolo Institute, a training program for dancers who want to join the group on tour. He says the institute dancers work in the community doing performances for schools and other groups.
In recent years, Heim and Diavolo also have focused on working with veterans through workshops and classes.
“Movement is beautiful therapy that can help people,” Heim says. “I want to help veterans believe in themselves.’”
Kathy Lauer Williams is a freelance writer.