Dance is beautiful.

May 22, 2011 4:45 PM

Ethan Law Roue Cyr performs a solo dance with a hula hoop. This is beautiful, a little astonishing, and more than a little moving. I didn't look away once.

Well, probably not an actual hula hoop. More like a thin metal ring.

posted by Rory Marinich (37 comments total)

I was reminded, of course, of the famous Fred Astaire hat rack dance.
posted by Rory Marinich at 4:46 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Erm, and now that I look at the related videos, I realize that what he's dancing with is a Cyr wheel, and his name is Ethan Law, and I don't know what "Roue" is. I'm ashamed.
posted by Rory Marinich at 4:47 PM on May 22, 2011

roue Cyr
posted by shoesfullofdust at 4:49 PM on May 22, 2011 [3 favorites]

roué [ˈruːeɪ]
n
a debauched or lecherous man; rake
[from French, literally: one broken on the wheel, from rouer, from Latin rotāre to revolve, from rota a wheel; with reference to the fate deserved by a debauchee]
posted by Huck500 at 4:50 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Beautiful! And like anything that seems so effortless, bet it takes gruelling precision. Thanks for this, Rory. Off to go find some more on YT.
posted by likeso at 4:55 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gyrate on, sweet prince. In the empty hangar of muted schoolgirl applause, you are king.
posted by fire&wings at 4:58 PM on May 22, 2011 [10 favorites]

At first it looked like the wheel did most of work, later it is the Performer who should get all the Credit, just watch your Fingers and re-gripping again at the right split-second.
posted by taxpayer at 5:03 PM on May 22, 2011

I have no idea how someone learns how to do this without crushing their fingers and toes, or busting up their face.

I've seen rings in person but I didn't know they were only recently popular.

The ones I saw were a bit smaller in diameter and if I recall correctly had square handles inside the ring for gripping with hands, or tucking feet into. They also had a bead of rubber around the metal rim to give it lots of traction. They were busking and performing outdoors with theirs on brick and concrete. The rubber also might help protect the ground.

The performances I saw were about as competent as this. It's really eye-popping to see in person because it looks like physics is being defied throughout much of the dance/play with the wheel.

It's also a really cool example of dynamic and emergent/chaotic physical behavior. A mix between a unicycle, a swing or pendulum, an eccentric weight, an axle, etc.
posted by loquacious at 5:03 PM on May 22, 2011

I'm not really a fan of modern dance, but after I watched this it occurred to me that maybe I should be.
posted by mhoye at 5:07 PM on May 22, 2011 [10 favorites]

Gyrate on, sweet prince. In the empty hangar of muted schoolgirl applause, you are king.

Not to spoil your poetry - but going by the utilitarian look of the space, the ropes tied off in the background, the crash pads off to the left and the type of people in the crowd (and also by how they react to the technical moments of the performance) I'm guessing that it's a circus arts, new gymnastics or trapeze type practice and performance space. Or just general body arts like dance and yoga, too. The audience doesn't look like they're sitting on bleachers, either, because they're staggered at irregular heights and not in rows. The people in the crowd also look pretty fit and are probably members or friends of the space.

I bet they're sitting on gymnasium gear like crash pads, wooden platform boxes and whatnot. Behind the camera and audience there's probably a bunch of toys they've put away for this casual Cyr ring demonstration.

I've seen a few places that look like this and some of them will host everything from skate disco nights to aerial trapeze classes to yoga sessions. Dance parties, dance classes, unicycle lessons, body juggling... etc. Some specialize more, but many are general use and multipurpose so they can attract more members, and people with different interests can get their skill practicing and exercise on.
posted by loquacious at 5:16 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

The example video from the Wikipedia entry, by Angelica Bongiovonni, is worth watching.
posted by shoesfullofdust at 5:22 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not really a fan of modern dance, but after I watched this it occurred to me that maybe I should be.

Dance is one of those mediums that I know so little about that I don't even know where to begin looking at it. Which is frustrating because with music, books, movies, and video games I at least have a rough frame of reference. This past semester I had a college course with Camille Paglia where she shared all of her favorite old Hollywood dance scenes and I was blown away by the fluidity of some of the performers (including that Astaire clip). Maybe the most impressive was this clip of the Nicholas Brothers, who I'd never even heard of. Paglia also showed us a lot of physical comedy, which she claimed was simply another genre of dance (and she used this scene of Charlie Chaplin as Hitler to make her point).

Sadly, the only genre of modern dance I even know the name of is butoh, which I learned from MetaFilter; something about that clip excites me a lot and I'm not even totally sure why. It makes me want to go out and take a modern dance class, but I don't even know how I'd go about looking for one of those. I wish dance had an equivalent of IMdB or RateYourMusic where I could lose myself in clip after clip of performance, but if it does I'm unaware of it.
posted by Rory Marinich at 5:24 PM on May 22, 2011 [4 favorites]

That was just beautiful - thanks for posting it. One can only imagine the grueling hours of practice to make it look so effortless and graceful!
posted by leslies at 5:25 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've always wondered if Leonardo da Vinci had something like this in mind when he drew the Vitruvian Man. I'm surprised it took until the 20th or 21st Centuries for gymnasts to put it into practice. Anyway, it's lovely and completely new to me - thanks for posting it.
posted by Quietgal at 5:28 PM on May 22, 2011

You know...for the kids.
posted by Knigel at 5:30 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

That inspired me try this in my living room, but it's way too small and I just smashed all my shit. Thanks a lot.
posted by neuromodulator at 5:46 PM on May 22, 2011 [3 favorites]

I was entranced. I think that the closest descriptor of that performance would be ecstatic, in the mystical sense of the word.

I was jarred by the annoying clapping and hooting, though.
posted by winna at 5:46 PM on May 22, 2011

I'm guessing that it's a circus arts, new gymnastics or trapeze type practice and performance space.

Yep.

"The first Icarian duo to graduate from the National Circus School in Montreal in 20 years.

Ethan and Maire-Pier take a contemporary approach to this highly acrobatic discipline steeped in tradition."

posted by ericb at 5:53 PM on May 22, 2011

Ethan on the Tramp Wall.

His YouTube channel.
posted by ericb at 5:59 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

That looks very much like something Michael Moschen used to do about 25 years ago. He's most famous for his juggling of clear plastic spheres (which he even did in the movie Labyrinth) but he did a lot of other dance sequences using other kinds of physical objects. One of them was a large ring exactly like that, though I have a vague memory that Moschen used a larger one.

That was included in "In Motion with Michael Moschen", an absolutely fabulous TV special that I wish I still had a copy of. Parts of it are breath-takingly beautiful.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:07 PM on May 22, 2011

Ahhh. Sublime. Totally enjoyed that! Thank you Rory Marinich. You're right, it is a little astonishing. Such grace and elegant simplicity. I loved that it wasn't showy in the usual theatrical drama, acrobatic sense but had a kind of zen poetry, bare but still dazzling.
posted by nickyskye at 6:20 PM on May 22, 2011

That was wonderful.


I'm guessing that it's a circus arts, new gymnastics or trapeze type practice and performance space.

I wondered if the audience was made up of fellow ring-dancers because the parts they whooped for weren't what seemed to me, as someone who knows nothing about it, to be the most difficult or spectacular ones. They must have known from experience when he was doing something really amazing.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 6:30 PM on May 22, 2011

That is beautiful. If I were a stripper, that would be my new pole dance.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 6:41 PM on May 22, 2011 [6 favorites]

Dance is one of those mediums that I know so little about that I don't even know where to begin looking at it.

Well, I find that pretty much anything which Great Performances offers is worth checking out. Particularly good (IMO) recently has been NY Export: Opus Jazz, a modern dance thing by Jerome Robbins.

Also keep your eyes out for the newest Wim Wenders film which should be released eventually -- a 3D dance piece based on the choreography of Pina Bausch.

Paglia also showed us a lot of physical comedy, which she claimed was simply another genre of dance

I've said for years that Jackie Chan's Hong Kong movies have a lot in common with Fred Astaire movies. They both have a plot that kind of moves forward for a bit, and then suddenly there's this bit of mindblowingly entertaining choreography, and then that stops and the plot starts back up again....
posted by hippybear at 7:24 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Shooped. You can see where they spliced in the action.


















Kidding
posted by clvrmnky at 7:35 PM on May 22, 2011

Does anyone have more info on the construction of the ring? My partner and I were watching this, and trying to figure out what the ring would be made of... We kind of assumed it would also be very heavy, and in some move the inertia seems to be what's pulling him through...
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 7:38 PM on May 22, 2011

That... totally worked.
posted by Decani at 7:43 PM on May 22, 2011

It's amazing how much that didn't feel like a solo dance.
posted by you're a kitty! at 8:08 PM on May 22, 2011 [2 favorites]

My ex-girlfriend was the first woman to perform the Roue Cyr back in 2004 or so, with the original cast of Cirque Eloize's Rain.

She learned it from the creator, Daniel Cyr. Roue is "wheel" in French, so the Roue Cyr is the "Cyr Wheel". (Cyr is pronounced "Sear")

Cyr basically took the German Wheel, which was a long-standing circus prop, and removed one wheel.

It is a very difficult skill to learn and involves not getting dizzy while spinning in rapid circles. Plus, you must release and re-grab the wheel each time it nears the floor or you will crush your fingers. Which gets tricky when you get into the super fast inertia moments close to the floor.

OneMonkeysUncle, it's basically made of two strong but light curved aluminum pieces that slot into each other. It's heavy, but not ridiculously so.

Currently, one of the foremost practitioners of the art is another friend, Jonas Woolverton, who has been doing Cyr Wheel routines with Cirque Eloize and Cirque du Soleil for something like 7 or 8 years now. He's in Zumanity, right now.

According to the Daniel Cyr biography, the Cyr Wheel is now taught at the Montreal School of Circus Arts, and around 100 acrobats now do the Cyr Wheel act...
posted by debris at 8:43 PM on May 22, 2011 [14 favorites]

I've been studying hooping for several months now, so this was both beautiful to watch and I was insanely curious to try it. It also gave me food for thought on how to work with my (much smaller than this) hoop.
posted by mogget at 9:11 PM on May 22, 2011

Although some of my ex-girlfriends were capable of performing circus acts, none of them performed the Roue Cyr. However, Mr Monkey's Uncle, I did find this link to someone who sells them as well as this performance by Hugo Noel.
posted by shoesfullofdust at 9:14 PM on May 22, 2011

debris, thanks for those links, and that Jonas Woolverton video is wicked. Gosh, I miss Montréal.
posted by shoesfullofdust at 9:29 PM on May 22, 2011

Good god, that's amazing, and beautiful. Really impressive in a number of ways.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:28 PM on May 22, 2011

That was beautiful. I think the thing that impressed me the most - as good dance always does - is that there was no escaping my mind from creating a narrative around the performance. I'm not a romantic person by any stretch, but for me there was no seeing this without being swept up in that tension. Now I have to go about my day with this lingering in my mind, skewing everything that's supposed to be all business.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:01 AM on May 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh and if it's okay for me to add here, a few of my favorite dance clips (both to pretty bad music):
Burning Room
Begin the Beguine
posted by you're a kitty! at 8:23 AM on May 23, 2011

a few of my favorite dance clips (both to pretty bad music)

Hey, now. Begin the Beguine is by Cole Porter, who is one of the genuine geniuses of American music. And I'm pretty sure that arrangement is Alfred Newman. It's not the best version of that song ever recorded, but it is a mighty fine song in and of itself.

Here's the full 10 minute sequence from the movie, including the actual song.

(Love love love the old style of filming musical numbers... where you actually got to see what was going on, not just a flurry of fast cuts.)
posted by hippybear at 10:22 AM on May 23, 2011

I wish dance had an equivalent of IMdB or RateYourMusic where I could lose myself in clip after clip of performance, but if it does I'm unaware of it.

Not quite what you're after, Rory, but maybe at least a place to start: Dance 101, by the Canadian National Arts Centre.
posted by EvaDestruction at 11:40 AM on May 23, 2011 [1 favorite]