REVIEW: Cirque Du Soleil LUZIA

“LUZIA is pure, unbridled joy. My face was aching from smiling and from the jaw-dropping feats.”

WHAT

Cirque Du Soleil LUZIA, a Waking Dream of Mexico

WHERE

The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park, Sydney

THE STORY

Luzia is Cirque Du Soleil’s 10^th touring show in Australia, with the first, Saltimbanco, wowing audiences in 1999. Australian crowds fell in love with the sheer artistry, fun, jaw-dropping feats and feel-good factors, and that love has not changed. Cirque Du Soleil (meaning circus of the sun) started out in the early 80s near Quebec City, Canada with street performers, including one Guy Laliberté. When organisers were looking for local entertainers to be part of the 450^th anniversary celebrations of Canada’s discovery by Jacques Cartier in 1984, Guy Laliberté formed Cirque Du Soleil, a group of 20 street artists. And the rest is history.

The company, headquartered in Montreal, has gone from strength to strength, with close to 4,000 employees, including 1,200 artists from more than 82 different countries performing in more than 50 shows.

It is mind-blowing that more than 400 million spectators in more than 400 cities in over 80 countries on six continents have seen a Cirque Du Soleil show.

THE SHOW

The mission of Cirque du Soleil is to invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of people around the world. In LUZIA –‘luz’ Spanish for light and ‘iluvia’ translating to rain – that mission goes into overdrive. LUZIA is the 38^th original production and it is a love story to Mexico. But it is so much more than that. I find my mouth hanging open and my head swivelling here and there like a meercat on steroids. There is so much going on. So much to look at. You’d need to go 10 times to get it all. The show features the incredible acrobatic displays that have you on the edge of your seat, visuals that mesmerise, the live music and singing that is so Cirque, and so many surprising elements.

We are sitting two rows from the stage, which features a garden of 5,000 Aztec marigolds, two (human) hummingbirds pecking nonchalantly, and a huge disc that moves and swivels. A lone musician strolls on, joined by a few more, before a parachutist (clown – Eric Koller) lands in the flowers and then finds a key, which he turns. Then, everything happens in a blur and you strap in for the ride.

Running Woman

A giant silver horse manned by three men emerges, along with a host of animals and birds and a winged woman (played by Australian Helena Merten), signifying a Monarch butterfly. It is colourful, spectacular and morphs into one of my favourite acts, the Hoop Diving.

Hoop Diving

This act just blew me away. I almost felt like I’d run a marathon. Being quite low, I was a bit worried that we would not see the big picture but the set design ensures that no one misses anything. This act is all about hoop diving, but it is on two giant treadmills on a revolving stage. A group of acrobats wearing hummingbird costumes, complete with wings and a long beak, jump through hoops a mere 75 centimetres in diameter. They dive through, sometimes feet first, sometimes bent in half and sometimes there are two or three hoops with different divers going through different hoops all at once. The cheering is cacoophanous. Faces are agog with wonder. My hands hurt from clapping. And that is just the start of the show.

Adagio

This act is the first that demands your attention in numerous places. The cast are like townsfolk, some with fishheads,  one with a crocodile head and one with a type of bug, gathered around a piano ina smoky dance hall setting. Their antics take my eyes away from the main act, a beautiful couple dancing, before she goes airborne, twisting and twirling and balancing on her partner’s hand, or being flung around by two others.

Cyr wheel and trapeze

This is the first act that introduces a new feature to a Cirque touring show … water. Of course Las Vegas show O – at Bellagio,  is all about water, doing things with the set that seem impossible but are not. There are cactuses (people dressed as cactuses), agaves, and the disc transforms into the setting sun. Two ladies with cyr wheels (more like bike wheels than hoops) do impossible things in them, along with a trapeze artist whirling and spinning. Then, it starts to rain. It adds an element of mystical beauty as the three ladies seemingly enjoy the rain, after that hot Mexican summer day … I wonder how the trapeze artist manages to hold on, especially as sometimes she is hanging on by only one foot.

Hand balancing

After a hilarious interlude where the clown toys with the audience with a whistler and a beach ball, to allow the imaginative crew to sweep in and dry the stage from the rain, but not just in a boring way. The clown gets the crowd cheering uproariously. How he does it, without talking, is unfathomable, but as with all his appearances, his facial and body movement say it all for him. With the new set now in place – a series of ‘waves’ and a ‘beach’, a lifeguard struts about in an outfit circa 1920s ready for his movie role. The ‘director’ gets him to balance on two canes, showing his phenomenal strength. How do you hold your body out horizontally? No clue. He keeps having to go higher and higher, eventually doing handstands and more movements six metres up.

Football dance

Amazeballs. Unbelievable. Mexicans love football, as does all of South America, and this act features two artists – Abou Traore from Guinea and Igo Matos from Brazil – who do the most gobsmacking things with soccer balls. You might think you have seen it all with people juggling soccer balls, but you have seen nothing like this. Sometimes they even morph in a little breakdancing, somehow keeping the ball on a foot, or some other body part. Again, the crowd goes berserk.

Masts and poles

The clown makes his appearance again trying to fill his water bottle. The water – that was full on rain before – now teases him, coming down here, there, everywhere but where he puts his bottle. How do they do that, you hear from people all around. Then, the rain comes down as a sheet, but this time, it features designs and pictures in an ethereal creation. While this is happening, percussionists and a singer, reminiscent of the Day of the Dead celebrations, take over the stage while the next jaw-dropping act is set up. It is a series of vertical poles, all around the stage, with women and mean climbing up, down, spinning, leaping from one to the other. It is so hard to know where to look as there is something happening everywhere.

 

 

Aerial straps

After an act where a mask-wearing professional wrestler, paying homage to  lucha libre (or ‘free fight’), he starts to swing, with the audience encouraging him to go higher and higher until he ….. you’ll have to see the show for yourself! Then strap in for a beautiful act featuring a man who emerges from a ‘cenote’ a pool that has miraculously appeared in the middle of the stage. What the? He loops his hands into straps and swings and twists with so much grace, coming down to kick the water, or touch the water. But he is not alone, there is a life-size jaguar, strutting around the cenote, even ‘drinking’ from the water. He starts off not liking the flying man, but after some beautiful interactions, they are friends.

The Juggler

Don’t expect normal, run of the mill juggling. This artist, Cylios Pytlak, does his juggling accompanied by percussionists, which adds to the party atmosphere. Mexico likes speed juggling apparently, and Cylios does it fast. He has such a great energy, and at one stage, he is juggling so fast it is all a blur. Even when he drops one of seven – yes seven – clubs, the crowd lists him up in raucous cheers.

Contortion

This one made me a squirm a bit. The lady in front was covering her eyes and you could hear the gasps all around watching Aleksei Goloborodko do things with his body that just shouldn’t be possible. He touched the back of his head with his pelvis. Well I am reliably told that he did, I might have had my eyes covered at that point.

Swing to swing

Wow. Just wow. I couldn’t stop saying it. Sure, I have seen other Russian swing acts in Cirque productions, but none when they are moving on a turntable so the audience can see it from all angles. Fliers are hurled into the air from one swing, and after spinning and twisting at impossible speeds land on the other swing, which is almost vertical. How? Just how do they do that? The timing has to be so precise, and the fliers must have such faith in the pushers driving the swings. They then take one swing away and bring in a mat, and then the fliers do more stunts, flying off the swing and landing on the mat. The fliers go up to 10 metres in the air. I was flabbergasted.

Hair suspension

This is what it sounds like. A goddess based on the Aztec Goddess of Water, rises from the pond – yep – that water again, and completes a fluid, elegant act – in the air – connected to a cable by nothing but her hair. She flew, she span, she landed back on the stage, right near us, and then was dragged along the stage and back up into the air … by her hair. How? Don’t ask me. I have no clue.

The Fiesta finale

This is beautiful. Like a Mexican celebration around a long table, with everyone there, talking, drinking, laughing, flirting … Again, it is hard to know where to look. The cast in this show seem to interact more, and have so much fun. In one scene, where they are frozen in time while the clown gets up to no good, one member tickles the face of another with a stick. Each and every performer is outstanding, and the standing ovation is thunderous. This show is great for kids too – there were many children there.

I have to talk about the set. OMG, the set. With its two revolving rings and central platter, the stage floor has 94,657 holes through which the water drains into a 5,000-litre basin hidden underneath. The water must be filtered, disinfected and maintained at a constant 39° C for the well-being of the artists. All 10,000 litres of water used during the performance are recycled for the entire duration of a stay in a given city.

Fun facts

In total there are 1,000 pieces of costume seen on stage in LUZIA, including 140 pairs of shoes.
LUZIA travel with a team of 120 people, including 47 artists, from 26 different countries.
LUZIA is the 10th Big Top show to visit Australia in 25 years.
The Big Top seats more than 2,600 people.
The entire site set-up takes eight days. This includes the installation of the Big Top, the Concessions Tent, the VIP Tents and the rehearsal spaces.
The Big Top stands at 19 metres (62 feet) high and is 51 metres (167 feet) in diameter.
The 4 steel masts stand at 25 meters (82 feet) tall.

HOW TO BOOK

LUZIA runs until 9 February at the Entertainment Quarter in Sydney. Get your tickets HERE.

Do not miss it!

You might also like to read this post on Cirque Du Soleil 

 

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