Jacques Heim is a charismatic talker who uses your name for emphasis and delights in outrageous comments.
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who → use → comments
He’s a natural showman, boyish for his 62 years, with the self-possession of a practised rule breaker.
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He → ’ → breaker
“Nick, I have to tell you, I was never a dancer, I was never a gymnast.
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I → tell → you
I was never an acrobat,” he says in French-accented English.
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he → say → English
“I was a rebel, I was a punk, I got kicked out of six different schools in Paris.
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I → kick → Paris
I was a little wild and so they had to put me in jail for a while, and then they let me go.
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me → have → while
“So my family told me: ‘Jacques, you need to leave, you need to go to the land of opportunity, America.’
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you → tell → opportunity
So I said ‘great’.”
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I → say → ?
Heim is the founder and creative director of Diavolo: Architecture in Motion, a Los Angeles-based company bringing its daredevil style of performance to Australia for the Brisbane Festival.
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Heim → base → Festival
The company’s spectacular dance pieces involve huge geometric props that roll, pivot and swing while the performers climb, balance, hang, fall and jump.
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performers → involve → props
“This is something I will remember, it was incredible, congratulations,” Simon Cowell told the company after its debut on America’s Got Talent in 2017.
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Cowell → remember → 2017
(Diavolo would go on to be finalists.)
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Diavolo → go → ?
Surprise and delight are arguably in Heim’s blood: his grandfather and namesake was an influential couturier who shocked the postwar fashion world with his two-piece swimsuit the Atome – the forerunner of the bikini – and pioneered prêt-a-porter (ready to wear) clothing.
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who → shock → clothing
“I guess some of my artistic juice came from him,” Heim says.
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Heim → guess → him
“I’m really interested about what is innovation, how do you know if an idea is a good idea, how does it affect people?”
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it → ’m → people
As the headline act for Brisbane Festival the company is presenting Escape, a show with 22 performers that “follows a group of humans as they … escape from their ordinary lives into a surreal landscape of infinite possibilities”.
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they → present → possibilities
“The seed of the show started as revolting against the state of the world that we live in,” Heim says.
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Heim → start → that
“You know what’s going on in the States.
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what → know → States
It’s a little crazy, especially with the government, who completely cancel every aspect of the arts.”
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who → ’ → arts
(The Trump administration cut funding to the National Endowment for the Arts in 2025.)
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administration → cut → 2025
“The reason it’s called Escape is very simply because we wanted to escape this crazy world that we live in, in the United States.”
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we → call → States
Heim does not need much encouragement to say what life is like in the country that has been his home for more than three decades.
“When we were creating and rehearsing Escape, we had the ICE agents actually moving around our studio...
“I love America.
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I → need → America
I don’t want to be a hypocrite because it has given me so much opportunity, but I do have to say in a very genuine way: it’s not the same country.”
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it → want → way
Back in his punk days, in 1983, Heim attended liberal arts college Middlebury in Vermont, and started getting interested in acting.
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Heim → attend → acting
But his garbled English was holding him back, so when friends suggested he try dance instead something clicked.
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something → hold → dance
Architecture was another love, and he began to see parallels, formulating a style of prop-based movement that was not quite dance, not quite circus, and not quite acrobatics.
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that → begin → movement
Heim created Diavolo on graduating in dance from CalArts, and its first full-length show debuted in 1999.
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show → create → 1999
By 2005, Heim was high profile enough to be invited to direct Cirque du Soleil’s show Kà, which is still running at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
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which → invite → Vegas
“That was my PhD, because I learned a lot.
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I → learn → lot
I nearly got fired at least 34 times,” he quips.
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he → fire → ?
The distinction is a philosophical one: circus acts can involve danger, whereas danger, for Diavolo, is a “theme”.
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danger → involve → Diavolo
“I need to put my performers in a danger zone on purpose.
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I → need → purpose
Because when you put a group of people into a state of survival, they come closer together and help one another, they don’t think about themselves, but they think about others and how to create safety around each other.
“
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they → put → other
So we have major safety protocols, and we have many steps that we implement.”
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we → have → that
Pushing performers beyond their physical and emotional limits has been a feature of Heim’s performance workshops with military veterans, a program Diavolo launched in 2016 as a way of treating PTSD.
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Diavolo → push → PTSD
“I operate as a drill sergeant.
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I → operate → sergeant
Even if some of the veterans are in a wheelchair, I ask them, can you get out of your wheelchair?
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you → ask → wheelchair
Can you crawl?
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you → crawl → ?
I make them crawl and move with all the dancers that elevate them.”
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that → make → them
Veterans have reported that taking part helped them avert self-harm.
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them → report → harm
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
