Ten Thousand Hours
to master an art
The Australian company Gravity & Other Myths is back at La Tohu
By Sophie Jama
April 27, 2026
Ten Thousand Hours, 10 000 is the number of hours of work one is said to need to devote to an art in order to truly master it. This symbolic threshold has clearly been far surpassed by the artists of Gravity & Other Myths, in dance, gymnastics, and some of the most demanding acrobatics. To close its season, La Tohu offers audiences the pleasure of welcoming back this Australian troupe, at once virtuosic, warm and generous, tightly knit and visibly delighted to be back on stage together.
Ten Thousand Hours, 10 000 is the number of hours of work one is said to need to devote to an art in order to truly master it.
But to move forward in any art form, beyond the considerable time you must invest in it, what better driving force than play to approach it and stick with it? Playing the way children do, setting increasingly difficult rules, constantly pushing your own limits, exploring the full range of your resources and abilities. This is exactly the spirit that animates the members of the company, each in their own way and all together, throughout the performance – and very likely in their daily lives as well.
As spectators take their seats in the stands at La Tohu, the artists (six men and three women) are already on stage. They warm up, stretch, and move through flexibility exercises in a quietly focused atmosphere. At the back, a luminous panel scrolls numbers like a countdown, or the trace of the countless hours spent in training. Beside them, an excellent musician, seated at his drum kit and digital console, drives the energy and rhythm of the evening.
The show opens with striking simplicity. An acrobat walks across the stage, crosses paths with another, then a third. At every encounter, bodies meet, catch one another, release, and are launched into the air as if taking flight were the most natural thing in the world. Everything appears effortless, obvious, fluid. Then the choreography grows denser as new sets of playful constraints are added.
‘A series of increasingly daring acts follows, each more perilous than the last, yet always performed with the same modesty and elegance that have become the troupe’s signature.’
Bodies stack on top of one another, first two high, then three, forming human columns that move from shoulder to shoulder in increasingly daring combinations. It is still, technically, just walking – but higher and higher, on the backs of partners balanced with millimetre precision. Once again, everything seems disarmingly easy.
And like this sequence, many other acts follow, each more perilous than the last, always performed with the modesty and elegance that define the troupe’s identity. You sense in them a simple joy, the joy of children immersed in play. They share their enthusiasm with the audience so naturally that you almost believe what they are doing before your eyes is within everyone’s reach and requires only minimal effort.
Ten Thousand Hours • Image: Darcy Grant
Coming from diverse backgrounds – circus arts, dance, acrobatic gymnastics – the artists of Gravity & Other Myths draw on the very best of what they have to offer. They appear both admiring of and intensely attentive to one another. Some acts carry a genuine element of risk, yet they are consistently carried by smiles, simplicity and the quiet confidence that mark great artists.
Recent recipients of the President’s Award at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris, Gravity & Other Myths appear on stage like a close-knit family. You see them having fun together, slipping in touches of humour and little bits of mischief that reflect each performer’s personality. Adults and children alike are drawn in by this sense of closeness and by the troupe’s direct, open way of connecting with the audience.
Ten Thousand Hours is a visually stunning, impeccably crafted show that makes you want to push your own limits – if not in spectacular acrobatics, then at least in the art each of us carries within, at our own level.
Ten Thousand Hours
Gravity & Other Myths
Directed by Lachlan Binns
runs from April 23 to 26, 2026
at La Tohu in Montréal.
Images: Darcy Grant – Ten Thousand Hours
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