by MARITES CARINO

Through most of his youth, American choreographer Daniel Ezralow was busy with sports like football, tennis and track and field. It wasn’t until college that he signed up for a modern dance class. During his studies, Ezralow began to see the similarities in athleticism and the arts; now he cultivates this combination in his creations. His most recent choreography, Aeros, features 20 Romanian gymnasts and makes its Canadian début this week at Just for Laughs.

Ezralow co-directs the show with fellow choreographers David Parsons (Parsons Dance Company) and Moses Pendleton (MOMIX). “All of us had athletic backgrounds before and during our dance training,” says Ezralow on the line from L.A. (David is a trampolinist, and Moses a competitive skier), “so we saw the combination very easily.” For the gymnasts, that wasn’t the case. One of the biggest challenges facing the choreographers was changing the mindset of the athletes they were working with.

Ezralow explains: “The gymnasts had to learn how to express themselves theatrically and emotionally. Initially they were trained to do athletics and they didn’t understand what it was to be on stage. We learned that there is the expression of the body that is for a point, a gold medal, and there’s an expression of the body that is really for a smile, a deep heartfelt moment. We tried to find that. Initially it was tough, but they changed from athletes to actors beautifully.”

The choreographers started working with the Romanian gymnasts in 1998, and over the years the work has developed and evolved into Aeros as it is today. “We did not want to make a gymnastics competition. We didn’t even want to make a dance show. We wanted to do a hybrid,” says Ezralow.

The show runs for over an hour and is made up of 20 acts, many of which bring gym apparatus onto the stage. In the piece “Mushrooms,” for example, there are two mushroom-like stools that the gymnasts use to practice on instead of the pommel horse. “It’s a really simple concept where there are two chairs and four guys,” says Ezralow. “It’s a little bit of musical chairs.”

Another piece, Machine, brings gymnastic equipment into the theatre. “Here we’ve taken a pommel horse and two sets of parallel bars and created a human machine with seven gymnasts,” says Ezralow. In an another unconventional piece, a female rhythmic gymnast performs on the rings, an apparatus traditionally used by male athletes.

The gymnasts are in tip-top shape, as they follow a rigorous training schedule not just for the show but also for professional competitions. But how, exactly, does Aeros fit into the Just for Laughs Festival? Quite well, according to Ezralow: “There’s a lot of humour in this show. A little slapstick, tongue-in-cheek and body and visual humour too.”

Aeros is part of the Just For Laughs festival and runs until July 27, 8pm, at the Centre Pierre-Péladeau with weekend matinées, 987-6919 for full schedule