If you are in any way tempted to run away with Cirque du Soleil, I hope you have nerves of steel and the grace of a snowflake.
Have you ever tried the hula hoop? On your foot? While doing the splits? Suspended upside down by two people? I didn’t know where to focus—the entire 360-degree stage was alive with something wonderful and breathtaking.
The performance, Corteo, centres on the funeral of one clown, who leads us with revelry and celebration through his memories while he journeys toward some form of afterlife. As he gains his wings, he recalls happy moments and life lessons from his childhood.
From bouncing on beds to tossing a ball at the beach, the performers make each experience truly wonder-filled. It’s a spectacle that shocked and delighted as much as it made me shiver with the beauty of it all.
There is no detail left unattended. The music for the show is performed live from four small boxes around the circular platform, sometimes joined by a marching band of elegant clowns on stage. A man fills the arena with his arresting voice, joined by the equally moving ethereal vocals of a woman (who, at one point, sang a solo while suspended and flipping on aerial silks).
Finely tuned and hyper-flexible muscles ripple as the troupe hoist themselves up and toss each other around, performing incredible feats of acrobatics with barely a safety harness—and no nets—to be seen. These are human bodies honed to animalistic abilities.
The trust and reliance between performers must be paramount in both rehearsals and performance. One scene nearly ended in disaster when an acrobat stumbled slightly on his landing (after doing a triple flip off a massive teeter totter); upon landing, he was not standing on his end of the teeter totter to could catch his airborn counterpart on the descent. A collective gasp rippled through the audience, but the acrobats just shook it off and jumped back into it.
In turns cute, wondrous, whimsical, fearsome, sensual, funny, and always, always spectacular, Corteo does not disappoint. This is an inspiring homage to a life well lived, with no regrets or unfilled desires to dampen the journey. I left with a head and heart full of wonder at the incredible things human beings are capable of achieving.
Corteo
Various times, until Sunday, October 7,
Various prices, Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre
sofmc.com