Cirque de Diego

Well yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we had (have) the pleasure of hosting the dancers from Cirque du Soleil's show, Delirium.

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Delirium is in town for the week and they needed a studio to do some replacement rehearsals. They also like to give their dancers a variety of enrichment experiences, so they were kind enough to ask me to teach a class.

So that was fun. The dancers are from all over the world and are trained in a variety of dance styles. Unlike the dancers in the ballet company, they aren't the least bit shy about "embellishing" the given combinations. That's fine. They are all working very hard night after night and on the road. So class needs to be as much about letting loose some steam, as it is about keeping in training.

Tonight, I'll take in the show itself.



Given the online images of it I am sure it will be a feast for the eyes.



So today my favorite thing is ... Cirque du Soleil.

I just love the attention to detail that they bring to all their productions. They raise the bar for when it comes to doing things right. My favorite show was the fourth edition, Nouvelle Experience. It was the show that really brought the costuming and music into the innovative circus acts to create a unified whole. It was also the show where we introduced to what have become two cirque staples



The contortionists. Twisty bendy people getting their bodies into all sorts of intricate shapes.

And the strap act. This is where you have someone who wraps themselves up in leater straps (or long panels of silk or chiffon) and is pulled up into the air as they twist, turn and pose.

Sometimes the two are mixed and you get twisty bendy people pulled up into the air as they twist and pose.

The Nouvelle Experience contortionists were a group of 4 girls who excelled in making a sort of backwards human pyramid. And the strap act featured some Russian muscle god who stalked across the stage with panther like paces before he would launch himself into Michaelangelo style poses of angst. All set to an erotically bowed cello accompaniment.

Since Nouvelle Experience has been closed for a while, I would have to say my next favorite show was Mystere. The first of the Vegas takeover shows.



Mystere featured: kodo drummers that descended from the ceiling, mermaid-like bungee aerialists, a big fat baby clown, an amazing hand to hand balancing act and its strap number (which was beautiful) began with a male gymnast who seemed to be suspended high above the stage in a rotating metal sphere (which he manipulated). He would then come down to "earth" and sweep up a female dancer into the ether.

Although there have been other Cirque shows that have been perhaps more spectacular (O, Ka, etc), I loved Mystere because of the physicality of it.

Someone once commented on the fairly expensive ticket price of Cirque shows. I agree they are expensive. But you know, I figure that they are going to amaze and delight me and it really comes down to less than a dollar a minute. Which is less than what you would pay for a chat on Psychic Friends Network.