Under the Big Top at Concord Pacific until December 29, 2019
Tickets from $54 at tickets.cirquedusoleil.com
Posted October 18, 2019
You may have seen other Cirque du Soleil shows but you’ve never seen one like Luzia. The word ‘luzia’ comes from the Spanish ‘luz’ (light) and ‘lluvia’ (rain). At times, curtains of water fall on the stage, dousing the performers who continue to perform despite the downpour. The poor bald clown – who appears and reappears throughout Luzia – can’t, however, seem to refill his empty canteen in the deluge, try as he might. The press release tells us the stage floor has 94,657 holes through which the water drains into a 3,500-litre basin hidden underneath. The stage also has two revolving rings and so, for the first time in our town, all the acts revolve, giving everyone in the big tent a perfect view. It’s a whole new show with a whole new design concept.
Luzia is a celebration of Mexico and Mexican culture: the music, the warm colours, the plants and animals. And, although you might not pick up on it, it illustrates periods and styles of Mexican entertainment over the decades. In fact, there’s a lot that goes into mounting these Cirque shows and if you want to fully appreciate Luzia, you could check out the press package here: https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/press/kits/shows/luzia
The costumes, as always, are fantastic beginning with the extravagantly-coloured, ‘feathered’ hummingbirds in the opening act. As they wait their turn, the acrobats ‘shiver’ their wings – red and pink and orange. The reference to hummingbirds, the press kit tells us, is the migration from northern climes to Mexico each winter. The acrobatic, beaked birds appear to fly through small hoops: frontwards, backwards and rolled up, all while the stage is slowly revolving.
All the acts – sourced from all over the world – are masterfully executed, heart-stoppingly timed and leave you gasping for fear of a misstep. Nowhere is this more apparent in the act called Swing To Swing: from the program notes, “under a luminous red moon, nine artists perform a stunning Russian swing act”. The ‘pushers’ of the swings demonstrate split-second timing by catapulting their partners up to 10 meters in the air. I came very close to wishing the act would finish because it was so dangerous. My heart was in my mouth but my guest’s advice was simply to “close your eyes” as she did.
Timing isn’t so apparently an issue for the contortionist. Bug-like, he twists himself into unbelievable pretzels. All coiled up, he actually rests his head on the back of his pelvis. And he performs other configurations that leave you squirming in your seat. Never for a moment does he let his creepy, insect-like demeanour down as he contorts his body into such unnatural, joint-defying poses.
There’s a juggler who defies the speed of light with seven shiny pins that simply become a silvery blur. Two young women fly around in cyr wheels, their yellow dresses like daisies in a windstorm. And there’s a slack-wire act that makes what we know to be so difficult, look so easy.
Luzia is full of the seemingly impossible not only made possible but beautiful.
Did I mention the horse? There’s a double life-sized articulated metal horse that comes galloping on stage accompanied by a ‘butterfly woman’ with vast, colourful, outstretched wings. Absolutely stunning are the metal-appearing headdresses: an armadillo, iguana, crocodile, snake, a pair of tuna ‘heads’ with big, bulging eyes and what looks like a pair of mating cockroaches.
Unforgettably beautiful is the rain ‘curtain’ with projections thrown on it: birds, leaves and animals raining down. Also amazing is the Papel Picado curtain, a huge, red, glowing, lantern-like structure that descends onto the stage between the acts. From the notes: “mounted on a cylinder, the Papel Picado curtain is 11 m high by 30 m wide. Set Designer Eugenio Caballero worked with Javier Martínez Pedro, an artist from a small town in Guerrero, to create the images that were all drawn by hand. The imagery was created by punching more than 13,000 holes into the surface of the curtain.”
Monumental and spectacular in every detail, Luzia takes you on a surreal journey into a land blessed with sun and moon, tropics and desserts, exotic birds, butterflies, strange animals, music, song and rain, lots of life-giving rain.