N.ORMES
Fringe Arts
140 N. Columbus Blvd.
Philadelphia
May 24, 2025
A singular spotlight appears on the stage, placed off-center. Two dancers, dressed in white, noiselessly step into the narrow, shining beam. Over the course of an hour-long performance, that one light, sometimes split into two, remains the only point of vision for my gaze to follow.
I, along with many other curious theater-goers, sat tucked away in the shadows of a black box theater to see one of two showings of N.ORMES, a circus arts project developed by duo Agathe Bisserier and Adrien Malette-Chénier, at this year’s inaugural Philadelphia Contemporary Circus Arts Festival, curated by FringeArts. The production combines contemporary dance, partner acrobatics, and miming to explore gender and social norms in romantic relationships.
Enveloped in near complete darkness, the performers had a very limited view of the audience who filled most of the seats. Performance art exists to be watched by other people, however, the piece appeared to play out as if it didn’t require an external perceptive awareness for effectuation. It was as though we, the audience members, were spying on these two individuals as they found, lost, and renegotiated their connection to one another.
Through their physicality and facial expressions, the dance partners shaped a narrative that felt relatable, captivating, playful, and, at times, emotionally fraught. Without using words, they told a strikingly unambiguous story of how two people learn how to lean on one another while navigating disproportionate weights of identity, society, and sex all standing on their shoulders.
The opening scenes of the dance evoked impressions of romantic mundanity in montage. Like Avril Lavigne once belted at the opening of her song, Sk8erboi: “He was a boy, and she was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?” The choreography reconstructed familiar images and scenes seemingly taken straight out of a romance movie. Bissiere, who is shorter and more petite than her partner, Malette-Chénier, floated effortlessly as he lifted her, and she balanced while upside down held high above his head, performing fluid acrobatic tricks and backbends.
At one point in the dance, Bisserier, left all alone on the stage, tried to achieve those same inversions by herself, but struggled. Briefly finding success using a wooden stand as a substitute foundation, she eventually collapsed, fully prostrate on her back with her arms outstretched, depleted. Malette-Chénier (MC) then returned, and lay his body flatly overtop hers, as if to transmit his own strength so that she could have enough. This scene demonstrated that while self-reliance works as a means to an end, it does not replace the support and strength of another person.
Later, MC ended up in the same prostrate position, but face down. His partner repeats his past action by lying atop him, but as they’re both still working within the confines of their expected roles, she still faces up, looking in the opposite direction. The image of them awkwardly mimicking a shape that had had an emotional impact the first time around made the audience laugh knowingly; lying back to back, rather than face to face, was evidently a futile attempt to sustainably maintain that sense of symbiosis.
Bisserier explained to me after the show that when MC balances her using his body as the base, he uses roughly 30% of his full body strength. In order to balance him, however, she requires “110%.” The artists held total control over when they moved with ease and when their characters struggled, but tasked themselves with choreographing all kinds of illusions in order to test the audience’s familiarity and inexperience with various partnership dynamics.
The acrobatic instinct of it all was reflective of the emotional depths of human attachment; Throughout life, we challenge our minds with stunts that have the power to inspire or hurt. The dancers’ circus training translated to stripped-down storytelling always teetering on the edge of suspense. Whereas language is implicitly confining in its ability to convey emotion, dance and movement capture the physical truth of connection. Amid all the complicated constructs imposed on us by the outside world — even those as falsely simple as the “boy and girl” binary — a circus act is perhaps the most apt way to recognize what is intuitive about love and what is absurd.
The story ended in a similar position to how it began, with the duo stepping once again into a now wider spotlight, big enough to contain both of them and all their multitudes. The dance evoked romance but this time added passion as MC lifted his partner with more fortitude than he was first capable of at the show’s start. Here they allowed the awe and excitement that marks circus performance art to come forward. Bisserier flew with ease, while also incorporating her own strength in a much more egalitarian coupling. Gender norms had been all but erased, as they both wore black pants to match.
Visit FringeArts on Instagram or go to their website to learn more about upcoming shows, including the Philly Fringe Festival in the fall.
