Cirque du Soleil: Kooza

I've been trying to figure out how to write about the Cirque performance I saw on Saturday night without resorting to the lazy writer's standby: you had to be there. (I think this excuse is generally the provence of writers who are too unwilling to attempt descriptions other than "it was awesome!"/"cool!".) Yet, when I start to line up what we saw and relate it in simple narrative ("there were these four guys on two high wires, riding bicycles, and doing complicated balancing formations, all while dressed a Russian/Eastern European opera characters"), it sounds kind of lackluster and silly. I also eschew words/phrases like "indescribable" and "beyond imagination!" because both are patently incorrect: I can describe the performance (just not to my satisfaction) and if the show were, in fact, beyond imagination, it would not actually exist. (Because someone had to imagine it in the first place in order to produce such a show!)

But, negatives aside: what a dazzling spectacle it was, and how wonderfully fun! With clowns who were actually funny, not creepy! And with three contortionists who did things I did not think were possible with the human body; acrobats, one of whom managed to do several jumps while on stilts; a woman who managed to spin seven hula hoops at once, two on one arm, two on her foot, and three around her waist; and countless others. The costumes were spectacular, particularly the opening number of the second act, which featured a series of "Day of the Dead" style skeletons, blended with a Las Vegas style dance number. The most thrilling act of the evening involved two men, dressed as devils (note: this sounds cheesy. It was not.), running in what were essentially two giant, rotating wheels on a central axis. But as they sped up, the men began to do tricks that involved leaping in and out of the spinning wheels (!), running on top of them (!!) and then jump roping on top of them (!!!). This is the part where my descriptive powers wimp out and I must say: you had to be there. The roar of the crowd when tricks succeeded, the gasps of surprise when they failed (the consequences did look pretty scary), the music, the costumes, the lighting: you had to be there. It was the most beautiful and engrossing entertainment that I've been to in a while.

yebisu9 said at the end of the evening that Cirque was like a dream that he didn't want to end, and I felt the same way. The last time I felt that way about anything pop culture, it was seeing "Spirited Away" and realizing with a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach that Chihiro letting go of Haku's hand was a sign that I was about to wake up. This time, I saw the signs of waking up fairly early on, and prepared myself accordingly. The real world is still beautiful, but I would happily return to that dream if I had the chance.