“I have always dreamed of escaping gravity,” acrobat and artist Bastien Dausse explains in an introduction to his invention la bascule, the seesaw.
The curved metal structure rises upwards in two graceful connected arcs. On one side, two large weights provide the necessary counterbalance to offset the acrobat’s weight, simulating 1/6th of Earth’s gravity—similar to what astronauts feel on the Moon.
In the lunar gravity performance above, the seesaw becomes an extension of acrobat Julieta Salz‘s body and otherwise impossible acrobatics. The piece was filmed at Fondation Fiminco in 2022.
Bastien Dausse explores a variety of projects as the co-founder of Compagnie Barks, “a contemporary circus company created around the desire to play with gravity…”
“It is a search for moments of lightness, where we allow ourselves to dream of an everyday life with infinite physical possibilities.”
The second performance, starting at 7m55s, is called la Table et chaises or The Table and Chairs. The first three minutes sets a tentative pace, speeding up at the 11-minute mark as Dausse and Saltz, “suspended in time and space, try to defy the imbalance and hold on to this unstable world.”
Watch these related projects next:
• Celui qui tombe (He who falls), Yoann Bourgeois’ turntable acrobatics
• La mécanique de l’Histoire, an acrobatic performance by Yoann Bourgeois
• Waltzing on the walls of Oakland’s City Hall
• Angelica Bongiovonni rides a Cyr wheel
• NASA footage from the moon: “I was strolling on the Moon one day”
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