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Stephen Humphrey
Stephen Humphrey is a freelance writer and journalist who has lived in Toronto since 1994...
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aerial dance, dance (6), Femmes du Feu, Fringe (2)

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It’s not at every dance rehearsal you hear someone say, “You’re stepping on my face!”

It’s more common when dancers become airborne.

Numerous bumps and bruises followed the decision by six Toronto dancers to use acrobatic gear like bungee cables and aerial silks, usually associated with high-flyers like Cirque du Soleil.

“I have a bruise above my pubic bone from Holly’s big toe,” confides dancer and choreographer Sabrina Pringle.

Pringle and Holly Treddenick leap from floor to balcony level using bungee cables in “Impossibility,” an aerial duet that opens Head First, the Fringe production and first showcase for dance troupe Femmes du Feu.

“Impossibility” explores the world of dreams to a soundtrack that includes Feist and local indie rockers The Golden Dogs.

The use of quirk-laden riff-rock by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Le Tigre and the Ting Tings lends the show a gritty exuberance that audiences sometimes treat like a gig, whooping and clapping along. The tuneage resonates with the unpolished surroundings of the Theatre Passe Muraille space and amplifies the DIY feel of the show.

The dancers choreographed their work, made their own costumes and developed equipment themselves.

They also took it upon themselves to discover the methods that extended their dancing into vertical space.

Pringle, for example, originally tracked down coaches to teach her the beautiful, daring manoeuvres acrobats do with long bolts of hanging, heavy silk after meeting aerialists on a theatre tour.

“I fell in love with it,” she says.

A year later, Pringle was recruiting dancer friends, such as Treddenick and veteran dancer Lara Ebata, to try silks.

“You see it, you need to do that,” Ebata says.

Treddenick says the seduction of a new challenge came at the right time.

“We’d all been out of school for 10 to 13 years,” she says. “It was just time to start something new and challenging.”

Predictably, there was a learning curve, as seasoned dancers became novice acrobats.

“There was definitely discouragement, and there was definitely a hurdle,” Treddenick says. “And you end up with lots of bruises and burns. It’s hard on your ego.”

Treddenick says she has a blooper reel from the months of painful trial and error that led to the show.

“We caught so many accidents on tape,” she says. “They’re horrendous, but so funny for us to watch.”

The Fringe became the first goalpost for the team, who pushed themselves to create a show for summer.

The gamble seems to have paid off. Sold-out houses and glowing reviews earned Head First an extra 6:45 performance for tonight, the festival’s closing night. Head First was also selected for the Best of the Fringe! showcase from July 23 to 25.

The company hopes their early success will lead to bigger venues and maybe a rehearsal space with higher ceilings.

“Height and good floor are atrocious to find in the city, apparently,” says Pringle. “We’ve been looking for two years.”