Altering reality with the power of imagination: this is the new mission proposed by the Cirque du Soleil with the traveling show ‘Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities’written and directed by Michael Laprisefrom last night to Roma where the large marquee mounted at Tor di Quinto will remain open until 29 April, to then move from 10 May and until 25 June to Milanowith over 130,000 tickets already sold in Italy.
The laws of time and space are challenged to guide the public towards a non-existent world to be reinvented, with the help of acrobats, trapeze artists, illusionists, dancers, musicians, clowns, magicians, jugglers, contortionists, actors, singers, extravagant characters and ‘everything that makes a show’, for a cast made up of 49 artists of 17 nationalitiesfor beyond 8,000 costumes and 426 propssuch as to make it necessary to use 86 trucks to transport two thousand tons of equipment.
The compass of ‘Which’ – 35th production of Cirque du Soleil – prescribes that, in order to glimpse the enchantment hidden just below the surface, we must learn to close our eyes and dream of a world that exists but is invisible and where ideas, even the craziest, can find full citizenship. And among these ‘citizens’, who move in a scene from the beginning of the industrial revolution, the Signor Microcosmosthe Seeker, theAccordion manthe Donna with the Gonna Antenna, and Robot Kurios.
The curtain of the show opens for the entrance of a locomotive, from which descends a colorful group of passengers from thenineteenth century, dressed in their best clothes. But soon, in a fusion of acrobatics, choreography and scenography, a real ‘chamber of wonders’ is created.
Thus come to life in this fantastic world a carillon with a strongman who transforms into human trapezius for her porcelain doll, one flying bicycleand invisible circusSiamese twins, creatures of the abyss, human pyramids, a mechanical hand, up to an upside down world for a ‘double’ housed in a parallel universe.
Il Cirque du Soleilbased in Montreal at Canada, is a true ‘multinational’, global leader in live entertainment on all continents. Its artists come from 64 countries who perform on stages around the world, always with the aim of making it daydream.
(Of Enzo Bonaiuto)