Chapter 250: Domte and Cía Nacho Flores at Ensemble Festival

Summer in the City. One of the joys of London for me is the way you can stumble across something that suddenly brings a whole bunch of strangers together. The outdoor arts are brilliant for that, and Ensemble Festival, organised by Certain Blacks, is a wonderful example: a thoughtful and thought-provoking riot of circus, theatre and dance that has been taking place at London’s Royal Docks since 2019.

Getting there was an eye-opener in itself. My first time on the Elizabeth Line, and then emerging onto the Docks in the sunshine, felt like arriving in another world. Having been reeling from the end of term, it was now sinking in that the summer holidays were stretching out ahead, with time to just be. I had no idea what I was going to see or even quite where to go, so after a couple of detours I was delighted to spot the festival flag, with the Thames sparkling behind it like a mirage.

I sat down at the first performance I came across. It was quite a good way in. A couple of volunteers had been roped in, literally, to tow the reins of a precarious wooden balancing act, on top of which a performer was straddled, balancing as though on an ox. The yoke they were carrying made me think of that, as did the sheer weightiness of the structure. And then I recognised in an instant, with a rush of joy,  that it was Cía (Compañía) Nacho Flores and Domte, a show I had first come across on Instagram, on the feed of the Yarmouth festival, and had been really interested in seeing.

Domte is an extraordinary exercise in using physics to create circus. The structure grows piece by piece, a feat of engineering requiring precision and the mind of a juggler, while the audience is held on a knife edge of delight because, clearly, at any moment, the whole thing could come crashing down. There is a constant play between dominance and vulnerability. But tension alone isn't what carries it.

Nacho Flores has a wild energy about him, unbridled and magnetic, a meeting of the shamanic and the Quixotic. He hurls non-verbal exclamations around, whether of enthusiasm or instruction, with a kind of extraordinary generosity, giving everything to the audience. Alongside him, Roc Saler provides evocative live music, sometimes ambulant on accordion, sometimes seated in front of a range of inventive percussive instruments. It feels earthy and instinctive, almost as though he were making the music out of the materials around him. The music then dialogues with the action, responsive and alert, amplifying the mood as it shifts from whimsical to poetic to downright comic.

The philosophy of the construction reminded me of seeing the legendary Sanddorn act, now a Cirque du Soleil staple, performed by the daughter of its creator, Maedir Eugster, at the Edinburgh Fringe years ago (click here), where Marula used intense concentration to build a gravity-defying sculpture out of 13 delicate palm leaf ribs and a single feather. Flores' creation also reminded me of the mobile imaginings of Calder's universe and the art of circus (see Chapter 135 - click here)

While the creation hung in the balance, as we all do, there was something incredibly infectious and liberating about the performance. And that is where the audience participation comes in. It is a key dynamic throughout, but ramps up with the involvement of two volunteers, and Nacho has the eye of a practised clown for picking people and filtering their energy. Their natural hesitation, their growing confidence and the spontaneity of it all mean that they are woven into the show rather than simply brought on stage. It is brilliant.

The performance riffs on its situation in a public space to explore collaboration, and we all go on the journey together. So much so, and this really made me laugh, that the young French girl sitting next to me refused to budge, deaf to her mother's increasingly urgent entreaties that her father and brother had been waiting for them at the restaurant for the past twenty minutes. Tant pis! She was not going to be moved by anything other than what was happening right in front of her.

At the end, spoiler alert?, Nacho gets his whip out. One well-placed crack and the whole edifice comes tumbling down. It worked brilliantly, a triumphant wake-up call, and somehow the perfect ending to a performance that has spent its time balancing control against chaos, and individual power against collective effort.

I went over to say hello afterwards. I had just got back from an impromptu trip to Valencia to catch up with friends I've known for thirty years, and to watch the Spain v Argentina football final together, and these guys are Catalan. Then, back in London, only the night before I had been cracking my own whip at a friend's fancy dress party, channelling those Head First Acrobat vibes (Chapter 241 - click here), while my husband had gone as Indiana Jones. That had also brought the house down. So we clearly had a lot in common!

I loved meeting Nacho's daughter, roughly the same age as the young audience member I'd been sitting next to. She was so bright, curious and completely engaged. When Roc raised a quizzical eyebrow at my reference to Don Quixote, I wondered whether I was in danger of reducing everything to cultural stereotypes, and decidedly Catalan ones at that. But I do maintain that there is something distinctly Golden Age about Nacho's costume and the tilt of a windmill in the structure, albeit more bullish in its energy, with something of the myth and the minotaur about it.

Coming halfway through the first time meant I had missed the whole build-up, so I went back for their second performance at the end of the day to catch it from the beginning. By then I was wandering around with a limoncello on ice and feeling quite in another world when I saw Nacho and Roc processing towards the public space, cow bells jangling, and followed along a fair distance behind, just taking in the spectacle.

I wondered what had brought them along, to find out it was mention on Instagram from one of those "gems of London" style influencers. It only occurs to me now that I should have asked for the handle! On the other side of me was a guy in a wheelchair with his carer. At one point Nacho had us all, Mexican-wave style, tickling the chin of the person to our right in turn. It says something about his energy that we simply followed, overcoming that split-second inward squirm, and then all fell about laughing.

It was a really beautiful moment of connection, and perhaps the best expression of what outdoor performance can do.