Links to reality...

I dropped into a surreal landscape the other night. It was fantastic, magical, breathtaking, elaborate, sparkling, thought provoking, marvellous, wonderful, astounding… I liked it.

Sensory overload.

What is Cirque du Soleil about?

This is the third Cirque du Soleil I’ve seen. The first, ‘La Nouba’ in Florida had so much going on, so many images to take in, that I felt sick for the first half hour or so. There were just too many frames of reference for me to easily handle. Last year I saw ‘Delirium’. It was okay but I have to admit to coming away disappointed - too much music, some good spectacle, not enough Circus - and a little slow moving.

This week I experienced Quidam, I think it means ‘everyman’. There’s some sort of story going on, although I can’t say I understood it - but then, who cares? Cirque is about spectacle and Quidam does the spectacle thing really well.

One of the characters seems to have stepped straight out of a surrealist painting. Dressed in a raincoat and carrying an unfolded black umbrella, he reminds me of the painting ‘Not to be reproduced’ by Rene Magritte - a man stares into a mirror and, rather than his face being reflected as you might expect, you see the back of his head repeated in the mirror – only this character doesn’t have a head at all. Was he the Quidam of the title? He may have been.

There are some other odd characters in the show – a compeer/ringmaster, a human target, an angry lout with boxing glove hands, a she - rabbit, an angel with empty wings, dozens of lost souls wandering all over the place. It was like watching an animation by Hieronymus Bosch – very weird, incredibly wonderful – beautiful.

Quidam has plenty of circus – a man who rolls, spins, and tumbles inside a huge metal wheel, four tiny Chinese girls who whirl ‘diabolos’ high into the air, catch them up in the string, whirl them into the air again, all the time somersaulting and flipping as they do so – an androgynous aerial act who dangles and plunges in lengths of red silk – three women who whirl and balance in silver aerial hoops - a trapeze artist who flies and drops through the air on a swing trapeze – a spider’s web of rope tumblers.

... all gasps and applause.

… the skipping rope act is unbelievable. A stage full of people skip-dance and tumble in a multiple rope frenzy, each time jumping higher and faster. An acrobatic troupe that literally throws each other through the air, around the stage, tossing bodies from one to another, like a human chain, double flipping as they spin. The quiet beauty of the male/female duo performing a series of incredible balances, holding them for what seems like minutes, appearing to become living sculptures, at times entwined and interwoven into a single figure like a living Hans Bellmer sculpture, gorgeous in its strangeness. And probably the funniest clown I’ve ever seen, pulling and demanding people out of the audience to act out his clownish fantasies.

… all watching and laughter.

… and all of the time away from the main action, smaller actions taking place; a blue skirted women rapidly spinning for minute after minute in a corner of the stage, three celestial beings moving along the gantry above the performers, groups of drones statue-standing or dog-running between the circus performers, a pair of spike haired ballet dancers performing a routine in the wings.

For some these might have been distractions, but for me they are the attraction. It’s the incidental that gives the reality to the performance, the surreality to the experience.

No two people in the thousands strong audience see the same performance, no two experiences are the same, and every single person sees their own personal show.

Perhaps that is what Cirque du Soleil is all about.

And what about my Cirque du Soleil, the one single thing that I’ll keep to run over and over in the cinema in my head?

The twenty paper leaves that fluttered from the red balloon as it burst above the stage - the slowly moving, white-suited drone that blew them into the darkness using a huge silver desk fan on wheels.

Surreal.

For me that is what Cirque du Soleil is about.