Anomaly: something that deviates from what is standard, normal or expected.
-Oxford Dictionary of English

Look at the programme for Le French May and you’ll see a section intriguingly entitled ‘multi-arts’ along with the more conventional ‘opera’, ‘music’, ‘dance’, ‘cinema’... There among a few select choices, you’ll find Anatomy-Anomaly. Read a little further and, yes, the circus is in town, though it is not quite Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. The Anomaly Company is a group of 10 graduates of the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC) whose circus is a combination of acrobatics, dance, music, sculpture and even architecture. No animals nor women with excessive facial hair.
So what exactly are they and their intriguing performing anatomical deviations? We spoke to Jambenoix Mollet, one of the members of the Anomaly Company, who told us about his admiration for Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (“I like the fact that the necessary humanity amongst our society is highlighted, as well as its void”) and the “circus without traditional circus instruments and accessories”.

What are the Anomaly Company’s feelings about traditional circuses?
There are very beautiful things in traditional circus, and in all forms of circus in general. Our particular taste for dance and dramaturgic research enabled us to invent new concepts and forms; that is the main interest of Anomaly Company.

What would be the Anomaly Company’s response to people who say that a circus is not a circus without clowns and performing wild animals?
It is sometimes said that a circus has to take place under a big‑marquee, or in a ring, or again with animals or clowns. For us, circus is nothing but sharing the risk-taking, a search for a collective balance. Circus is a language itself, part of our vocabulary.

What kind of training did you receive at the CNAC?‑
During the first two years, teaching consists of general knowledge about circus, as well as important training in dance and theatre. From the third year, we choose specific classes, and in particularly teeterboard, a collective vaulting exercise where risk is shared between several people. The desire to share the risk-taking is without any doubt at the source of the search for balance in the company.

It’s traditional for each graduating class of the CNAC to demonstrate what it’s ‘made of’ in a touring show cum finals performance. Did the decision – and confidence – to establish the Anomaly Company come out of the successful participation of the class of 1995 in that year’s last performance, Le Cri du Cameleon?
We decided to create the company Anomaly before finishing school. We wanted to stay together because we had worked together on collective exercises, and we liked it very much. All our experiences at school, particularly when experiencing the concept of searching for balance, generated fruitful meetings with creative choreographers and directors who each came with a new and enriching vision of the circus art.
Le Cri du Cameleon was our first creation, based on a principle we are still following: the company works under the direction of a choreographer or a director whose universe is every time different from the previous one: Joseph Nadj, Guy Alloucherie, Christian Lucas, Martin Zimmermann.

The Anomaly team has been described as being influenced by the work of Alberto Giacometti, the artist famed for his surrealistic sculptures. Does this mean that there are surrealistic as well as sculptural aspects to the Anomaly Company’s performances?
It’s with Anatomy-Anomaly that we began to work on Alberto Giacometti’s artworks; from a proposal by Martin Zimmermann. It generated numerous thoughts on personal identity, power of memory and the past. In the scenography of this show, we found the importance of the pedestal as a weighty object of our past history, even through our dynamism. Surrealism is an important concept that belongs more to the creative part: work on improvisations, space for unconsciousness in our creativity…

Discussions of modern circus performers like the Anomaly Company tend to stress their artistic inclinations. At the same time, their work continues to sound very physically demanding. Which aspects of your performance create the most physical stress?
Seesaw? Acrobatics? Once again, it’s the crave for risk-sharing that constitutes the strength of the company!

Sometimes, when watching a tension-filled act, I feel almost afraid to breathe. When the Anomaly Company performs, do they find themselves distracted by noise?
No, our performance is more like dance; music has an important part. Nonetheless, there is a moment during the show that requires a necessary total silence, one that highlights this notion of danger so specific to circus art.

Catch the Anomaly Company’s Anatomy-Anomaly on May 31 and June 1 at the HKAPA Drama Theatre. Shows start at 8pm. Tickets are $150, $220 and $300 from HK Ticketing,
31 288 288.