Interview – Noa Aubry, 2024 Laureate

Valentina Barone: When I think of the German wheel, in terms of versatility, I feel hesitant. How did you get passionate about this specific equipment, and why?

Noa Aubry: I started studying circus when I was fifteen at ENACR. I took multidisciplinary classes, but then my teacher introduced me to the German wheel, and I immediately liked it. At school, I rarely saw any representation of it and was unaware of its potential. As everyone does nowadays to learn the technique, I spent a lot of time watching videos of acts or gymnastic competitions and all the possible materials I could find. 

Intuitively, I thought, there might be a space of freedom for me to learn in my way and at my own pace. I have a background as a musician since I played classical guitar for a long time, which gave me a musical approach to circus and developed a very precious relationship with rhythm. 

While doing the German wheel, no matter what I was learning, it became evident that the rhythm was always the same. There was always a systemic momentum following the same pattern: an acceleration, a figure at the top in suspension, an acceleration, a deceleration, and, again, a suspension. I wondered if, instead of learning a new figure and focusing on what to do inside, we could look further at the wheel movements and open up other possibilities. I began to explore that aspect and went back to the basics where I could have control and master the wheel’s weight.

Later on, I continued exploring the German wheel at CNAC. Since my research relies on weight shifts, I focused on slowness, not directly, but as a consequence. My research is entirely about paying attention to the details of how the weight moves. How can I hold onto it, have the time to absorb the wheel movement, and not just think about when to insert a figure at the right moment? I had to stop thinking of circus figures in favour of listening to how to move this wheel and to receive the wheel movements. I like geometry, and this apparatus evokes it, creating curves and connections between lines and spirals. In my approach, it is my body that moves the wheel, not doing feats, just as a body that can exist within that object.

For me, the question is: what does my body feel? We are alive, feel something, and are unique in our feelings. How do I touch the wheel, and how does my body position itself? In circus, we learn figures, so it’s very likely we end up doing similar things. This research is a way to say that I can be different and maintain my individuality in this discipline. The more we feel, the more we notice details, and the more time seems to stretch. When there is slowness, I can feel the entire journey of the sensation through my body, it slows down. It intensifies. 

VB: Your work merges the dimensions of space and time. Is the German wheel a space for you rather than an apparatus?

NA: Yes, it is more about a space than an object. I also work on presenting the body in a way that doesn’t immediately change when outside of the wheel or without it. The show does not aim to symbolise something in the wheel or something outside of it. It is more like a journey, a sensitive exploration. The German wheel exists on its own. I can exist inside of it and move on it. The weight of the German wheel is almost similar to mine, around 40 kilograms. And yet, I wanted it to feel light, to make it appear light. I wanted to express a sense of softness through a sensitive approach to this apparatus. 

When the audience enters I am already on stage but not yet inside the wheel. We spent a lot of time thinking about how we could emphasize the body and not just the body-with-the-wheel.  For this reason, setting up the space on stage and inside the wheel are both delicate moments. I enter the scene and only go inside the wheel after many minutes. The wheel’s space offers possibilities of rhythm and suspension, conditioning my body in specific ways at certain moments. If I resist the wheel, movements can be very slow, but there might be faster moments. I always work on alternation, seeing how my body is with and without the wheel. But the importance for me is that the body keeps traces of these spaces inside and outside the wheel so that there is always a continuity of the body.

The wheel is a space that carries my body, as the ground carries the wheel, but the wheel is all around me, so there’s a dimension where I’m both suspended and grounded. The wheel can be still, and I can move inside it, or I can be still, and the wheel can move. All these exchanges are very diverse.

VB: At what point in your career did you apply for circusnext? 

NA: I was just out of CNAC and wanted to create a show as my research’s continuation. It took some time before it grew into a form that could become a whole show. Applying for circusnext was not necessarily in my thoughts, but people recommended doing it and I applied with the material I had researched in school. I enjoy reflecting on creation. I can spend a lot of time writing and reading to try to understand. The philosophical and intellectual dimensions interest me and nourish my work as something I need. The first lab during circusnext was great because it was just before my first residency. It was nourishing to be with others at the beginning of the process and exchange ideas, to see people who understand what you want to do. Circusnext was great for setting milestones, and artistically it gave me reference points that enriched the process. It also helped me find a team, someone for sound and lights. Often, these things work last minute, but it changes everything when there are suddenly lights and sounds, and in my case, I am happy to have done some of that work in advance. I reminded myself I wanted to explore more after the process ended. The show is not finished yet. It is still a sensitive work on transformation. 

VB: Can you tell me more about your choice of an intriguing title as Là où la nuit n’est pas si loin puisque le jour s’en va deja? 

NA: I chose the title quite quickly; it came up almost as an intuition. There’s a poetic approach in the title that I wanted to evoke. I sometimes like to provoke, in the fact that it’s a bit long. I love that moment of transition between day and night. The basic idea was to let it express a place where something is happening, an in-between space, a place of passage. What’s relevant for me is just the transition. At what point do we draw boundaries? When do we decide that it’s night, and what happens in between? This research is much about that. Our entire life is compartmentalised. All words describe specific things, and there are boxes, borders, and edges for everything. But in reality, things are never as defined as that. As humans, we often decide to define, although everything is transforming, and we always carry the past we’ve lived through and the projection of the future. There’s always a permanent temporal multiplicity. I wonder how to make these in-between spaces sensitive. 

VB: Who is behind the scenes with you and helps you professionally during creation? 

NA: I worked alone a lot at school, but since I started the show, I’ve understood how enriching it is to work with other people. I work with Naïf Production, a company based in Avignon. I met Mathieu Desseigne-Ravel, one of the founders, during my time at CNAC. He had already supported me during Les Échappées, the presentation of solo research I did at the end of the three years of training. There was already a powerful artistic and human connection, so I asked him if his company could support the project and provide feedback and human exchange throughout the creation process. Other people support me, coming in occasionally to help me understand the research. It is important for me to discuss and compare my ideas with other people, it enriches the creation a lot, especially for a solo. 

VB: How did you arrive at the choice of implementing the pulsing mixture of electroacoustic sound composition? 

NA: I composed the first musical ideas myself. At that time, I needed to use music to express what I felt, but then I realised that I already had enough to do on stage and could let go. Now, I work with Christophe Ruetsch, a performer and composer who works with all kinds of sounds, which he casually mixes on stage or in electroacoustic music studios. He brings me new intuitions, possibilities that I did not necessarily imagine. It has been a very enriching encounter that makes the process grow. 

VB: What are your influences or inspirations from the arts that you bring into your circus research?

NA: I love going for walks and looking at landscapes. Sometimes, I take time to observe something like a river with a current. The river moves, and just behind it, there are trees. If there’s wind, the leaves will move, but the tree trunk doesn’t. In the same landscape, we have these different rhythms coexisting and also, the weight of the elements that surrender to the wind, or not. These are not things I think about all the time, but they nourish me. Another influence is reading. Philosophy, some novels…There’s a philosophical essay by Barbara Stiegler, Nietzsche et la vie, which I find incredible. It’s an essay about the sensitive body, how the body receives from the outside, and what it does biologically with that external input to continue existing. I return to what I said earlier about how we name things to put boundaries around them. We only receive flow. There’s never something fixed.

Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves also resonated with all of this. Otherwise, I found inspiration in a lot of dance performances. For example, I enjoy Nacera Belaza, Christos Papadopoulos, or Gisèle Vienne. I’ve always loved watching dance because unlike what we often see in circus (except for a few exceptions) there is work on continuity in dance, a precise exploration of the body. We explore that. Christos Papadopoulos, in particular, works on this as well: he creates shows focusing on one thing and how it transforms. He embraces this sensitive, simple, yet complex approach. He doesn’t try to symbolise, understand, or tell a narrative. That speaks to me a lot: working from a singular sensation each time.

VB: How would you define your relationship with circus and dance?

NA: I love this question, but it would take me hours to answer! Both disciplines are strong in themselves. It’s hard to say that we do one thing when we ‘come from’ another. I like to say that I move. That I move from one point to another, that I learn to feel and let my body express itself. I keep nourishing myself with dance classes and workshops. Recently, I took one with Myriam Gourfink on slowness and density. 

Since the beginning of the creation, and even before, there’s been an emphasis on the quality of touch. The feet, for example, how the feet land on the wheel, how they land on the ground. Working on twists, which are more dance-related work, understanding what the body can explore internally. What’s always complicated is asking myself: should I keep saying it’s circus? And that circus can also be this? Or should I say it is circus and dance? For me, these are infinite and very rich questions. Do we expand the category or say they are two different categories?

VB: What are your plans for 2025 and the trajectory for shaping the final version of the show?

NA: I will be soon in Denmark for a residency at Dynamo Workspace, then in Germany at Tollhaus and then in France again for another one in 104 in Paris. The debut of the show will be at Le Sirque, on the 12th and 13th of August 2025.  

Besides my authorial project, I also collaborate as an interpreter – alternate with Marica Marinoni – in the new creation of Les Filles du renard pâle, La Roue Giratoire. I think about my show every day. There’s so much to do and think about, so it takes up all my time. It’s nice to have something else that’s different, and this experience is teaching me professionally a lot. It also offers some stability. If I didn’t have other projects on the side, everything would rest on the solo, and I think that would be harder.