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Sunday, August 08, 2010

Cirque du Soleil

Kristin and I went with some of her friends to see Cirque du Soleil. I'm sure you're familiar with it... it's a circus that's well known for its spectacles. Bizarre costumes, a narrative, very artsy. It was my first Cirque du Soleil performance. And the thing you realize is that, although it's very artsy, it is indeed a circus. There are no animals, but there are jugglers, acrobats, a tight-rope walker, and even clowns. In fact, the clowns are the driving force behind the narrative, which is actually pretty slim. The show I saw is called Ovo, and it has a very vague narrative about insects (each performer played an insect), a stolen egg, and a love story between two bugs. But the story was really just an excuse to set up various performances.

Despite my lack of excitement about the insect story, I was very impressed with the performances. There was some very good juggling, and the high wire and the trapeze act were both very good. One thing I noticed is that the performers occasionally slipped up. One of the trapeze artists fell into the net, and the jugglers occasionally dropped what they were supposed to be juggling. But each time they simply started again as if nothing had happened, which I think was exactly right. Considering the very fancy things they were doing, perfection's pretty much impossible, and recovering from mistakes well is important. I'm sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere, but I'm equally sure that it's a hoary cliche, so I'll just leave it alone.

Overall, it was worth seeing.

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