Spawned from the depths of San Francisco’s thriving Dance and Circus sub-cultures, the Vau de Vire Society, since summer ‘04, has ravaged and titillated the live entertainment scene causing jaws to drop in awe and admiration around the Bay and beyond. This Avante-Cabaret community consists of classically-trained dancers, some of the nations most acclaimed Acrobats, Aerial Artists, Contortionists and side-show acts, an array of Fire-Performers, a handful of Thespians and the most enticing go-go’s. The group has been cross-pollinating genres by collaborating with an eclectic variety of renowned Musicians and Dj’s in creating original stage shows for the non-pretentious. Collaborators have included the San Francisco Symphony, Dresden Dolls, Alkaline Trio, Angelo Moore (Fishbone), The Mutaytor, Loop!Station, String Cheese Incident, Kid Beyond, Rosin Coven, DJ Zeph, Mc Azeem and many others.
Vau de Vire Society is coming off an amazing Fall ’05 of Festival performances. In October Vau de Vire joined the Flaming Lips, G-Love, Medeski Martin and Wood, Banyan and many others on the Xingolati Groove Cruise where they showcased “Xingolati, Crossing the line Ritual”. The piece written/directed by Mike Gaines involved 35 performers and 3 vocalists with The Mutaytor and Angelo Moore providing the original score. In a novel-first for Carnival Cruises, Vau de Vire built it’s 30’ tall jungle-gym on the deck of the ship allowing VdV Aerial Acrobats to fly high above the crowd in a visual spectacle that was described by Glide Magazine (Josh Klemons) as, “the most amazing artistic landscape that I have ever witnessed first hand. I can say no more, see them if you can… it changed the way that I will see art from here on out”
Two weeks later (Halloween weekend ’05) Vau de Vire hosted “Vau de Vire’s Twisted Cabaret” at the Vegoose Festival in Las Vegas. The Cabaret was 1 of only 5 featured stages at the festival which drew 90,000 attendees and included performances by Dave Mathews Band, Beck, Flaming Lips, Ween, Widespread Panic, The Arcade Fire, Blackalicious, Primus and many more. Vau de Vire curated 16 hours of entertainment over the 2-day festival to amazing reviews. The Las Vegas Review Journal featured Vau de Vire on it’s cover-page 2 days in a row while Vegoose producers claimed, “Vau de Vire provided us with a show beyond our expectations...it was clearly quite a hit”.
In early November, Mystic Family Circus invited Vau de Vire to perform for Cirque du Soleil at the opening night gala of their newest production Corteo.
In December ’05 Vau de Vire was featured with the San Francisco Symphony in a 3-night presentation of Stravinsky’s opera Le Rossignol. Michael Tilson Thomas, the worlds’ foremost interpreters of Stravinski, conducted the piece while Tony and Emmy award winner Patricia Birch staged the show. The San Francisco Chronicle called Vau de Vire’s performance “…eye-popping…giving a precise visual correlative of the horrors of mechanical birdsong”.
Vau de Vire ended ’05 delving into their first Music Video collaboration with Chicago rock band the Alkaline Trio. The video entitled Burn is slated for MTV release in early ‘06
No matter the genre they infiltrate with their unique brand of Circus Theatrics, the Vau de Vire Society creates a live choreographed explosion of all that is beautifully talented…you really must see for yourself.
