The collection of latex from rubber trees, the hard-working arms that spend their days turning it into tyres, the circular shape of the wheel, the silhouette of a Formula 1 car, the celebration of a driver at the finish line, a speeding motorcycle. These images, part and parcel of everyday life for Pirelli, were shown in an entirely new way during the launch event for the 2016 Calendar, thanks to an original artistic performance. They were, in fact, formed by the bodies of 'Tumbellina International', a group of professional acrobats from around the world who have spent the last 10 years 'transforming' their shadows into images and creating visual spectacles of great beauty.
Like the one presented at the gala evening for the new 2016 edition of the Pirelli Calendar, which brought together 650 guests at the Roundhouse, a former industrial building that has been one of London's temples of rock ever since the 1960s. So elastic are the Tumbellina dancers, who merited the description 'Rubber Men' more than ever on this occasion, that it was impossible to tell that the story displayed on the screen via the traditional "Chinese shadow" effect, was in fact a story drawn with their bodies, a surprise revealed only when the curtain rose at the end of the show.
