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Cirque du Soleil: Varakei
Dani and I went to see Cirque du Soleil tonight. I wasn't sure what to expect; I enjoyed the show quite a bit. I'm not sure I would go to another performance, but I'm glad to have gone to this one.
The acrobatics in the show were stunning, and the dancing was very good. The price for all that is sitting through some lame attempts at humor so the acrobats and dancers can catch their breaths between acts. (Ok, the price of the acrobatics and dancing is the cost of the ticket, but you know what I meant.)
Visually the show was very well-done -- lights, costumes, choreography, and background action all contributed. While, in the second half, there were some bits where there was one solo act on stage alone, during most of the show there were people doing stuff in the background while the "main" act was happening. It contributed without distracting -- a hard balance to achieve, I suspect.
The dancing reminded me a little of Bhangra, an athletic Indian dance that I learned a bit of about 20 years ago. (I was in a couple performances in the SCA, back when squat-kicks and hoisting people on my shoulders seemed like perfectly reasonable things to do.)
The music worked well, and the synchronization between music and choreography was very good. It sounded like the music was pre-recorded, but we saw some individual musicians (a violinist and a bagpiper). So I may be wrong there. If the music was live I would expect there to have been a click track or the like; some of those stunts would probably fail if the musicians were 5% slow or fast.
Oh, the show has a nominal plot. It's quite nominal, and you may as well just ignore it. It's not that kind of show. :-) They had one actor on stage who seemed to be a plot device (the light-bulb guy), and I didn't get what he was supposed to be or why he was there. I wouldn't have minded them just leaving that out.
The show is in Pittsburgh for a couple more weeks. The best seats are sold out for all remaining performances; we had the second tier and those seats were good enough. We were three rows in from the back wall, center section, and had no trouble seeing. I would recommend against the third-tier seats; they're way out on the wings. You can probably still see everything, but you get a side view and some of the choreography will just be lost to those seats.
The acrobatics in the show were stunning, and the dancing was very good. The price for all that is sitting through some lame attempts at humor so the acrobats and dancers can catch their breaths between acts. (Ok, the price of the acrobatics and dancing is the cost of the ticket, but you know what I meant.)
Visually the show was very well-done -- lights, costumes, choreography, and background action all contributed. While, in the second half, there were some bits where there was one solo act on stage alone, during most of the show there were people doing stuff in the background while the "main" act was happening. It contributed without distracting -- a hard balance to achieve, I suspect.
The dancing reminded me a little of Bhangra, an athletic Indian dance that I learned a bit of about 20 years ago. (I was in a couple performances in the SCA, back when squat-kicks and hoisting people on my shoulders seemed like perfectly reasonable things to do.)
The music worked well, and the synchronization between music and choreography was very good. It sounded like the music was pre-recorded, but we saw some individual musicians (a violinist and a bagpiper). So I may be wrong there. If the music was live I would expect there to have been a click track or the like; some of those stunts would probably fail if the musicians were 5% slow or fast.
Oh, the show has a nominal plot. It's quite nominal, and you may as well just ignore it. It's not that kind of show. :-) They had one actor on stage who seemed to be a plot device (the light-bulb guy), and I didn't get what he was supposed to be or why he was there. I wouldn't have minded them just leaving that out.
The show is in Pittsburgh for a couple more weeks. The best seats are sold out for all remaining performances; we had the second tier and those seats were good enough. We were three rows in from the back wall, center section, and had no trouble seeing. I would recommend against the third-tier seats; they're way out on the wings. You can probably still see everything, but you get a side view and some of the choreography will just be lost to those seats.
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Oh, and I think that at the show I was at, they had recorded music, but one or two live soloists, so I think your impression was probably accurate.