With this visit to Vancouver, Cirque du Soleil dips back into the past with Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities to present a show that imagines the future from the perspective of the past. Writer/director Michel Laprise – in concert with a creative team of two dozen, more than 50 performers, plus musicians, sound and lighting technicians and a huge working crew – creates a late-19th-century world on the cusp of huge scientific discoveries, a world of weird and wonderful inventions, a world of infinite possibilities. The look is steampunk and the period is late Victorian, when steam was powering the world.
At the centre is The Seeker, a mad scientist surrounded by his collection of oddities and unusual characters, including Mr. Microcosmos, in whose huge belly resides Mini Lili (a little person less than a metre tall) and her parlour with its tiny armchair; Klara, whose hula-hoop-like rings receive electromagnetic waves; and Nico, the Accordion Man whose costume allows him to shrink to almost nothing.
Consistent with all of the Cirque shows – and there are 19 of them around the world this year alone – the narrative is not the thing. We don’t necessarily understand that, according to the program, Mini Lili is Mr. Microcosmos’ intuitive, poetic side; nor do we get that The Seeker is a humanist who believes in a perfectible world. We are simply dazzled by colour, sound and lights and, most of all, by the death-defying, jaw-dropping feats of daring performed by bodies beautiful.
We are charmed, too, by the delightfully low-tech in the midst of all that hi-tech. Lowest tech of all is a mini, mimed tribute to the old-style circus, with a very small circus ring, a velvet curtain and a ringmaster with a whip. We see two trapeze bars but no performers, a vault but no acrobat and we hear the roar of a lion but see no lion. Cirque and this imaginary little circus-within-a-circus are poles apart but this act recalls shows going back hundreds of years, well before Guy Laliberté founded Cirque du Soleil in 1984 in Quebec.
What puts Cirque du Soleil above all the rest are the body-hugging colourful spandex costumes, distinctive make-up, music and non-stop action; there’s always so much going on and Cirque gets every little detail right. Even while you’re watching bodies flying, vaulting and balancing, there’s something happening elsewhere. You don’t want to miss a thing. In this particular show, the steampunk ambience lends itself to the rather strange half-machine, half-human figures stalking about in the shadows. Of all the Cirque shows I’ve seen, this one is the most visually interesting.
Watch for The Aviator, who arrives in a small prop plane and performs a ridiculously difficult balancing act on cylinders and planks atop a moving platform. Be amazed by The Yo-Yo Guy, who does things with a pair of yo-yos that would seem impossible until you see it. Gasp at the contortions into which the four deep-sea creatures twist their incredibly lithe and agile bodies. Be amused by the chair balancer, who discovers an upside-down, sky-high mirror image of himself and his guests at the dinner table.
The program tells us that Cabinet of Curiosities refers to a time when “aristocrats, members of the merchant class and early practitioners of science formed collections of historical relics, works of art or mysterious travel souvenirs or artifacts.” Take time to get a close-up look at the two glowing “cabinets” on either side of the stage. Salvaged from junkyards and re-assembled, they represent two elements: sound and electricity.
It’s a grand show under the Grand Chapiteau. Release your inner child, open your mind and let your kuriosity run free.
Cirque du Soleil: Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities
Under the Grand Chapiteau (Concord Pacific Place) until Dec. 30.
Tickets from $50 at tickets.cirquedusoleil.com
• For more reviews, head to joledingham.ca.
