The circus performers in “Passengers” are both powerful athletes and graceful artists, achieving awe-inspiring feats of physical prowess. They are also travelers, and storytellers, in ways that I found more thought-provoking than the creative might have intended.

Train travel is the theme of this 90-minute show by The 7 Fingers, the Montreal-based contemporary circus troupe, which is at PACNYC for a brief run. In-between the acrobatics, we see the performers as train travelers, packing, unpacking, lining up, boarding, taking their seats, disembarking, for one trip after another — establishing a rhythm, a setting and a mood, like modern dance, rather than creating identifiable characters or a linear plot.

 Shana Carroll, one of the seven co-founders of The 7 Fingers, and the writer, director and choreographer of “Passengers,” waxes poetic about its meaning: “Departure vs. arrival. Chance vs. choice. Stillness vs. acceleration…Our fascination with trains is in many ways a symbolic one: life happens along this track of sorts, winding through valleys and plains, as we stare at the reflection of our very own eyes superimposed upon the shifting landscape.”

 But I also see something more timely, and political. Most of the nine performers on stage are travelers in another way as well. Marco Ingaram, who during the show climbs a pole to the very top and dives down head first, miraculously stopping just before his head meets the floor, was born in Argentina. Anna Kichtchenko, a Canadian of Russian origin, does wonders with hula hoops. Santiago Rivera Laugerud, from Guatemala, juggles. Away from the stage,  “travelers” are called immigrants and are juggling, jumping through hoops and hitting their heads against the wall every day.  

Amid all the dazzling acrobatics,  there was one act that especially struck home – an aerialist used a silk ribbon as a kind of trapeze, performing a ballet in mid-air, swirling and twirling with the silk.  I was struck because there was just such a scene in “Water for Elephants,” the 2024 Broadway musical for which Shana Carroll served as circus designer and co-choreographer. Both performances were technically impressive and beautiful. But the one in the musical was also deeply moving.  It was the heart of a larger story —  the Silver Star, the featured attraction of the circus in “Water for Elephants,” had fractured his leg bone, and the central character had to shoot the horse.  During the song “Easy,” the aerialist Antoine Boissereau was portraying the death of Silver Star. (Boissereau is not performing in “Passengers,” but he’s the resident director and tour manager.)

What’s ironic here is that “Water for Elephants,” although it had a respectable nine-month run, never quite found an audience; the choreography and acrobatics – which I found spectacular – weren’t enough of a counterbalance for what many found to be a tepid story, even while the story enhanced the choreography and acrobatics. Similarly, few people who think of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” remember it for the exhilarating leaps, flips and somersaults by the Spidey-clad ensemble, for the flying over the orchestra, and the vertiginous fight atop the Chrysler Building.

Yet, I doubt many would dismiss “Passengers” because of the storytelling, even though none of the moments between the physical feats add much to the experience. There is music, some singing, a few scenes; one of them is an underwhelming effort to explain Einstein’s use of trains to demonstrate his Theory of Relativity. 

Here is my theory as to why such modest stabs at storytelling don’t kill the show; don’t really matter at all. It’s about expectations. We associate the circus as an arena of sequined self-promoters loudly hyping their act as death-defying. The travelers in “Passengers” humbly go about their business of wowing us.

Passengers
Perelman Performing Arts Center through June 29
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $37 – $105
A production by The 7 Fingers
Written, Directed and Choreographed by Shana Carroll
Artists on stage : Kaisha Dessalines-Wright, Eduardo DeAzevedo Grillo, Marie-Christine Fournier, Marco Ingaramo, Anna Kichtchenko, Maude Parent, Michael Patterson, Santiago Rivera and Will Underwood 
Composer/ Musical Direction Colin Gagné
Lyrics Colin Gagné and Shana Carroll
Scenic Design Ana Cappelluto
Costume Design Camille Thibault-Bédard
Lighting Design Eric Champoux
Projection Design Johnny Ranger
Sound Design Colin Gagné with Jerome Guilleaume