No animals in this Circus

Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today.

Martial

We saw the Cirque du Soleil show "Quidam" at the Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne Saturday night. Amazingly, there were lots of empty seat in the large venue. The show is just so good I can't believe more people weren't there to see it. Perhaps ticket prices are causing people to hold back in this economic climate. What a pity - I wish everyone, or every child, could see this show.

The gorgeous costuming, the music, is wonderful. There is no dialogue - and certainly none in English. Imagery is used to tell the story. A child whose parents are preoccupied with the adult world begins to play and enters an imaginary world - with fantastic circus performers of all kinds. Asian yo-yo twirlers, jump rope masters, people climbing and hanging in fabrics. Clown directors that recruit audience members to put on a performance communicate in pantomime only.

There are archaic, iconic sorts of figures. There is a headless figure walking around, the top of his empty sports jacket a dark black emptiness. He's eight or ten feet tall. There are suspended ghosts of sorts, in shrouds, that don't really move. Are they corpses? White moths seem to fly out of one of them.

Of course, the performance has breathtaking gymnastics, tumbling, and people launching people up to shoulder stands. The costumes are so dreamy, the fabrics and ropes luxurious, not a detail is unattended to. The music I noticed particularly - traces of French carousel, gypsy, and Middle Eastern or Arabic themes all mixed together. Haunting, melodic, minor mode switches back and forth with major mode. The band was there on stage, in the background, in costume as well.

If you have a chance to see a Cirque du Soleil show, I think you will be glad you did. I'm ready to catch another one.