There’s a much-touted theory that practising any skill for 10,000 hours is sufficient to become an expert. The theory has been widely debunked, but people love a simple premise, so the saying persists. In this show by Australian company Gravity & Other Myths, the cast of eight performers and one musician display that, no matter how long it takes, to be truly skilled at anything is going to take some time.
A performance that’s as playful as it is professional
Gravity and Other Myths is famous for blending acrobatics, gymnastics, and dance into exceptional displays of human ability. In this show, we are presented with a performance that’s as playful as it is professional. Feeling at times more like an insight into the practice room where a group of acrobats fool around, Ten Thousand Hours presents a stunning series of acrobatic skill where the cast tumble, flip, clamber over each other, and fly through the air with almost superhuman skill. Standing on each other’s shoulders three people high, they drop and roll into dynamic poses as others somersault and backflip across the stage.
Highlights include a warmup reinterpreted as contemporary dance based off audience suggestions, improv style. I never expected to see a skilled acrobat perfectly portray a dishwasher doing a stretching exercise, but I’m delighted I did. A sequence follows that starts with flipping a water bottle and quickly ramps up to flipping humans in the same way. A game of acrobatic Pictionary needs to be seen to be truly understood and a lovely moment where two of the cast are allocated ten attempts at a trick shows that failure is an important part of the process on the road to perfection. All of this is performed with cheeky enthusiasm and plenty of smiles from the cast with lots of eye contact directed at the audience that makes us feel as if we’re a part of the fun.
Throughout the show, the cast perform in front of a huge clock that rapidly counts down from ten thousand before counting successes and failures, marking time in routines, and creating abstract shapes that complement the onstage physicality. It’s a fantastic bit of lighting design – simple yet effective. The music, some of which is performed live on stage by a musician sat at a complex drumkit and series of pedals and mixers perfectly complements the frantic explosion of acrobatics onstage.
Who knows how long each of this talented cast have practised to reach the impressive level of skill portrayed on stage. It could be 10,000 hours; it could be more or less. All I know is that Ten Thousand Hours shows that it’s possible to make gravity seem like it’s optional - with enough practise.
