Last night my wife and I headed to Toronto to see the latest Cirque du Soleil act in town, Kooza. In short, it was absolutely brilliant.
Since this was my first Cirque experience, I honestly had no idea what to expect. Driving in to the parking lot to see the huge circus tent, in all its blue and yellow stripes was really quite neat. Once inside the tent, the seating was fairly squished, but at least that let everyone view the show from fairly close up.
Even before the show started, the audience was treated to entertainment as the characters ran around the tent, acting in various situations with or within the crowd. Once the lights dimmed and the show was underway, however, my jaw literally dropped and had to be picked up off the floor when the lights came back up at the end. It was that amazing.
The strength and talent that I witnessed last night was like none other that I have seen first person before. Handstands galore, flips, lifts, dexterity, amazing flexibility, strength and sheer commitment – the show had the whole package and then some.
The best part was no doubt the giant double pendulum thingy that circled around (vertically) essentially like a ride right out of the midway. It had two fearsome looking guys doing acrobatics within and on top of the two pendulum ends. The entire crowd gasped every time one of them would jump and fall down to land on the swinging pendulum end.
The contortionists were freaky, but despite their extreme limberness, they had a crazy strength. The seemingly youngest of the three of them made a one handed planche look easy. While in Toronto, the contortionists actually made a World Record for highest ever circus performance. Kind of a lame record, but here’s a vid of their routine (skip to about 2:35 into the vid). Freaky stuff – especially the part where the one girl’s legs walk around her upper body like a ghost in the Grudge.
Other highlights include the guy who did handstand presses while balancing on a skyscraper of chairs, the juggler, the unicycling waltz, among many others. A bonus was a great live music performance throughout the whole show.
Cirque du Soleil is definitely something that, should you have an opportunity to see, you shouldn’t miss out on.
For more on Cirque and, specifically Kooza, take a look at their site, here.
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