A HIGH-OCTANE SPREE OF PHYSICAL
VIRTUOSITY, BACKBONE TESTS THE LIMITS
OF STRENGTH: PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL,
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE.
interest can cause works and companies to fall
apart, and it lends their shows an authenticity of
connection that audiences immediately sense,
says Harrison. “They’ve never worked with
anyone else. They know each other inside out.
They could do the show with their eyes closed
and they know each other will be there. That
authenticity of trust and respect and knowing is
what the audience finds really attractive. They
can latch onto that very easily and quickly.”
Though they’ve been together for close to two
decades, the recent rise of Gravity and Other
Myths has been meteoric. The company’s first
national tour saw them playing small spaces
all over the country, and one such gig was in
front of an audience of eight. One of those eight
happened to have a brother working at the
Underbelly Festival in Edinburgh, however, and
insisted the company give him a call. Four days
later they were booked into a tour to Scotland,
and after working their guts out performing
there they scored a top agent.
That’s how they’ve been touring 11 months of
the year for the past three years with the show
A Simple Space, with bookings for it continuing
through to 2020 at least. You don’t pull off 500
performances of a work without an ability to get
along as a team.
At the same time, though, this is a group with a
fierce competitive streak and a thirst for testing
their own limits. That’s where Backbone emerged:
as a project that could put on trial the concept of
strength, both of the physical variety, of emotional
strength, but also of the strength of bonds that
connect each member of the ensemble.
“So this whole concept of backbone, like vertebra,”
says Harrison.
“When they’re all in a line it’s perfect but if one’s
out the whole thing collapses. How does the
group maintain its authenticity when there are
such individuals within it? That was a starting
point and it turned into this whole endurance and
strength choreography.”
—JOHN BAILEY