| Cirque du Soliel Comes to Town | | Print | |
| Written by Sarah Joy | |
| Wednesday, 22 November 2006 | |
 It was a dark and stormy night... No really... I was drenched on my walk from the car to the Hampton Coliseum where Cirque du Soliel's Delirium "Music in Motion" was performing...
Now, I have to admit that I was a little worried about this assignment. It's not that I didn't want to go to Cirque du Soleil. It's been on my list of things to do for years. I have heard people talk about it, seen the posters, and have always been intrigued. But as I was sitting in my seat, I began to wonder… am I cultured enough to be here? I mean, am I going to "get it?" I love theater, but I have often shied away from the more esoteric artforms (give me Da Vinci over Dali). And Cirque du Soleil always seemed like one of those artsy things to me. Maybe I won't have the necessary cultural background to even understand what's going on, heck, I never even took French in college. So it was, on that dark and stormy night, that your fearless hero bravely entered the Coliseum to do battle with the unknown. To my surprise, at first it seemed a little like a circus had come to town. Because it was at the Coliseum, there were hot dogs and popcorn being sold and my seat was a simple folding chair (not what you usually expect as a theatre goer). And instead of a traditional stage, there was a broad, tall stage going right down the center of the Coliseum, with huge screens to the right or left displaying some kind of abstract artist rendering of something I'm sure. My anxiety grew.
Then the show started... Then, all of a sudden, without quite realizing how it happened, I was in the dream. Becoming, for a time, each of the characters. Because, in your dreams you see yourself as you truly wish to be. And that's what these performers were: what we aspire to be. Powerful, graceful, weightless.
But it didn't stop there. There were so many amazing, talented performers. And in the dream-like trance, you have been placed in, it was hard to remember that what they were doing was hard. Adam Read from Australia spent almost the whole show on stilts. And not those industrial stilts you see everyone using these days…. these things were just long polls. And in an act called Lifeline, four men: Oleg Kagarlytskyi, Anton Mankuhin, Ruslan Kiyanitsa, and Yuriy Shabunin did things that…. well, let's just say as the aerial tissues fed into my feminine dreams of weightless, I am sure their acrobatics fed into the dreams of strength that most men in the audience where dreaming of. It is obvious that Cirque du Soleil has gone to great lengths to get the most talented artists from all around the world. These people are all the best at what they do and really seem to love doing it. And of course, a good dream is nothing without COLOR. The costuming was amazing! I've seen small theatrical productions, I've seen large scale Broadway shows.
But what completed this dream-like state was the music. Just like a dream, it was a mix of so many different things. You could hear parts of Indian, African, Asian, French all in one song. It added to the pleasant disorientation until it became so natural, so a part of the show, that you began to almost not notice it, like a heartbeat.
Besides that, the mix of the music was very good. There were more drums than a Battlestar Galatica soundtrack (if you watch the show, you know what I mean). But the drums were exquisitely played and didn't overshadow the other artist, for example the wonderful Trumpet soloist Jacques Séguin. And the choreography complemented the music. The same sense of balance and out of this worldness. A joy to watch. All together, this show is one of those dreams that you wake up in the morning and want to cry for the beauty of it. Now here is where I tell you a secret. Lean in close to the screen, because I don't want everyone else to know. This is a really good show to take your significant other to. I keep talking about how you are put into a dream like state. The show works on your subconscious. The music, the colors, the beautiful people. You leave the show feeling very, what's the word… Primal. Now, I don't have the stats to back this up or anything, but if I were you, I'd take someone to the show that you won't mind spending some, um, personal time with afterwards. That's just a little secret from me to you. Did I like the show? Yes. Would I have gotten more of it if I were French? I'm sure I would have. But don't put off seeing this show because you don't know much about "true art". Believe me, this show works on all levels.
Tip if you do go: Cirque du Soliel's Delirium "Music in Motion" plays at the Coliseum for one more night: the night before Thanksgiving (Wednesday, Nov 22, 2006) For more information: |
A great example is the "aerial tissues" performance in an act called "Bridge of Sorrow". Aerial tissue is when a person is suspended above the ground by strips of cloth that looks so shear and so delicate that you can not believe they could hold up to a good sneeze let alone support the weight of a human being. The performers, Alexandra Apjarova from Slovakia, Cìnthia Beranek from Brazil, and Emilie Therrien from Canada brought you into the weightless dream. And their sinuous movements lulled you into thinking that what they were doing was perfectly natural, that everyone is born knowing how to fly.
I've even seen Cats. But I don’t think I've ever seen such wonderful costuming. 
As far as the vocalists go, they were all very talented, but I couldn't really understand what they were singing. I know that is partly due to the fact that sometimes they were singing in another language, but I know at least part of it was in English, but I couldn't make out more than every other word. I'm going to give the vocalist the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to a balance problem, because the rest of the music was so rich and pervasive that the vocals were drowned out a bit.