PIFA 2018: Compagnie Transe Expresse presents 'Cristal Palace'

Its creators may hail from France, but local dancers and Philadelphia trombonist Ernest Stuart augmented the company for this outing. Compagnie Transe Express has performed in 57 countries on five continents, and they were here for PIFA 2011, dazzling another crowd during that festival’s outdoors block party on Broad Street.

This time, they’ve landed on the banks of the Schuylkill with an often-mysterious sense of multisensory fun and the belief they can “transport the spectator into a sensational world.” This remarkable company brings to its work an artistic daring and performance authority that allow them to achieve that goal.

Everything, everywhere

As darkness descended, the performers — in outlandish costumes — began the evening almost undercover, circulating through the crowd as the characters that would shortly head to the stage. At first this seemed like a warmup, but as they came and went in the audience throughout the evening, it soon became clear that nothing they did was arbitrary.

In this production, something happens all the time, everywhere. The show includes musicians, dancers, prancers, aerialists, trapeze artists, acrobats, and mimes, with a little commedia dell’arte tossed in. The scenery moves from place to place.

There’s a smoking-hot band; they are literally smoking, with fog. Matching the eclectic troupe, they play the show’s original music — every conceivable style — with pizzazz and virtuosity. And though all this might sound mixed up, every moment has been sculpted and engineered with skill and conviction.

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Layered on top of all that action is a justly vaunted, slightly menacing, but absolutely marvelous gigantic chandelier, constantly changing colors, flying high and low and hovering in the darkness over stage and crowd alike. A marvel of engineering and ingenuity, the contraption took two years to build.

It’s controlled by a Philadelphia crane operator — an artist in his own way — who has never done anything like this before. Seven members of that remarkable band are strapped onto the moving chandelier’s seats, playing as if their lives depended on it, which they actually might.

Fear no art

Art often crosses into dangerous territory. Here, in addition to scenes where the cast scatters or huddles for what seems like protection from some unknown thing, Cristal Palace also contains the gasp-inducing, audience-enchanting thrill of physical risk.

There’s the chandelier, of course. But then an aerialist climbs a pole suspended from it, and another swings from its trapeze, hitting the bells. Aerial silks unfurl and slim poles are climbed in a way that seems impossible. The audience, faces upturned to an ever-changing display of color and lights, can’t help but be dazzled.

The evening truly delivers on its promise of fun, fueled by constant technical wizardry and the galvanizing athleticism of the company’s performers. But only after the show could I catch an analytical breath to consider its layers of complexity.

Musical trance

Cristal is a legendary French champagne, and all night long the company referenced it with glasses in hand (or affixed to hats) and a bartender constantly proffered the drink from his peripatetic bar. (In Transe Express style, he also plays the violin.) Another reference that stands out is the legendary Victorian Crystal Palace. Built for the Great Exposition of 1851, it transported 19th-century Britons to other worlds.

The company’s name also resonates. Transe is, of course, the French word for "trance," and it’s also a style of electronic dance music with a hypnotically repetitive rhythm. But a transe is also a passageway or hallway — something that takes you to another place. That’s what happens here.

There might seem to be no plot, but in a sense, this troupe’s work posits — and then proves — that everything is plot. Over and over, they create scenes of gathering emotional power that let the audience decide what might or might not be happening; that structure is the hallmark of great performance art.

Opening the evening was Nobuntu, an enchanting Zimbabwean a cappella quintet. The group’s close harmony, strong rhythms, and beautiful singing alternately floated over the river and stung like a wasp. At first, they seemed an odd choice, totally alien to Cristal Palace in music and performance style. But dressed in their modern interpretations of traditional African fabrics, the five women also took the audience afar, to their homeland.

At the end of the evening, with the giant chandelier sporting a disco ball and vibrating over the crowd as people danced onstage and on the grass, it was a jolt to come back to the reality of street crossing, parking lots, and traffic. I felt transported, just as advertised.