Dressed in a boiler suit and a face-obscuring helmet, David Zagari moves in and out of contact with a centre stage perpendicular pole. When distanced from it, his limbs appear unruly, unseen forces knocking him off balance to the sound of electronic, video game-like tones. When connected, his body lightens; legs wrap around the pole, allowing his torso to float ecstatically as he orbits it like a satellite.
There’s not enough contrast between these two states, however, to make Le Piquet truly satisfying. Unlike astronauts who collapse and require assistance to walk after returning to earth, Zagari always seems able to regain control of his body, even in precarious situations. At one point, while suspended upside down on the pole, he loses his grip and plunges headfirst toward the ground, catching himself just before impact. Moments like these are the highlights of Le Piquet, thrilling due to Zagari’s technical skill rather than a deeper physical exploration of gravity’s effects on the body.
Emily May
David Zagari’s Le Piquet gestures towards weightlessness and disorientation, but often feels suspended in its own ambiguity. Set on a red-lit, styrofoam-lined stage, with a lone pole at the centre, the work opens with a helmet-wearing figure (Zagari) crumpled on the floor – a human mass caught between earth and void. Over the course of the performance, he loops through technically adept pole movements – pivots, inversions, hangs – to the sound of a glitching heartbeat. Yet the choreography remains emotionally flat, in large part due to the tinted visor obscuring his face, a theatrical dead-end that restricts more than it reveals.
Lighting shifts, gestures repeat, and still we are left reaching for meaning – just like Zagari, who repeatedly attempts to reach the top of the pole. Did someone clip his wings to prevent his ascension, or were they never there to begin with? Le Piquet hovers instead of ascending into an ever changing nowhere. It lingers in the fall, but never decides whether it’s sinking, floating, or simply stalled.
Nicola Mitropoulou
Dressed in a helmet and full-body suit, a performer (David Zagari) moves in slow motion on a white platform. At first, his movements are fluid and harmonious, then suddenly become loose and stumbling. He wavers from side to side, as if searching for balance, until he reaches a centre-stage pole – his safe space. Here, Zagari explores weightlessness and gravity, climbing the structure and executing tricks around it that generate surprise but lack emotional depth. Accompanied by pulsing sounds and fluorescent lighting, his movements take place in a disorienting limbo. It makes us wonder: where are we?
Ultimately, Le Piquet feels caught between concept and execution. Transitions are abrupt, and the technical skills, though impressive, seem detached from any central thread. There’s beauty in the aesthetic, yet Zagari seems to be more concerned with polish and stylisation than with developing a coherent dramaturgy. Is that enough? The result is a performance that reaches for introspection, but never quite lifts off.
Maria Chiara de Nobili
A tall mast set within a small wooden platform sits centre stage. Beside it, a cosmonaut lies under a bright red wash of light. The suit, now familiar in queer feminist circles as a symbol of anonymity and a challenge to masculinity, immediately suggests otherworldly exploration. As in what seems to be one of his larger research questions, what new possibilities emerge when a body moves beyond the codes of gender?
As the choreographer-performer David Zagari navigates the platform and mast, he defies gravity with a fusion of animation-inspired movement and b-boy skills. Missed catches break the illusion of smooth space travel – but are these stumbles part of the journey? Quickly shifting tactics, he climbs and experiments with descent: dramatic drops stopping just centimeters from the floor, slow spirals clinging only by a foot or leg, always with astonishing stillness.
The lighting uses bold color blocks, while the music evokes a nostalgic, imagined future. How do we travel through constraints? Le Piquet asks, not through triumph, but through the grace of persistence.