Time.news – Imagine entering a Melies film from the early 1900s. A sort of ‘Journey to the Moon’ where bizarre characters parade alongside extravagant-looking professors. Then put in some German Expressionist cinema, from Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ with human robots to Robert Wiene’s ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ with a touch of Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo Cabret’ with the fantastic mechanical images and objects of scene.
This is what happens to the spectator who enters the majestic marquee built at Tor di Quinto in Rome to watch the show ‘Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities’ del Cirque du Soleil. Under the Grand Chapiteau, made for the first time in Italy with a yellow and blue canvas which, in correspondence with the four main masts, reaches a height of over 25 meters, about 2,500 people live a unique experience, led into a fascinating and mysterious realm, which disorients the senses and perceptions, to the point of wondering: “Is it all true or is it just a figment of my imagination?”.
The doors of an ambitious inventor’s cabinet of curiosities are accessible, who defies the laws of time and space to reinvent the world around him: unique and extravagant characters guide him to a wonderful place, where everything ignites the imagination and the his curiosities come to life one by one before his eyes.
An upside down world of poetry and humor where the visible becomes invisible and perspectives transform. And all this accompanied by music played by the Kurios Band made up of six musicians who perform live to show what happens on stage, motifs that bring back the classic jazz of the 20s.
‘Kurios – Cabinet of curiosities’, a traveling show by Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group which has so far sold over 130,000 tickets in Italypresented by the Italian partners Show Bees and Vivo Concerti, is a mix of unusual curiosities and breathtaking acrobatic feats, a true blockbuster in pure Cirque du Soleil style on stage in Rome until 29 April (a village was set up in Tor di Quinto with an area of 48,000 square meters) and then go to Milan in Piazzale Cuoco from 10 May to 25 June.
This production, Cirque du Soleil’s 35th since 1984, boasts a cast of 50 artists from 17 different countries, some of which have toured with Cirque du Soleil for over 15 years. The scenography places the viewer in a well-defined place: a Seeker’s chamber of curiosities, full of unusual objects collected during his travels. Set in what could be defined as a retro-future, the stage layout makes numerous references to the beginning of the industrial revolution which took place during the 19th century, without being bound by it.
“It’s as if Jules Verne met Thomas Edison in an alternate reality, out of time,” explains production designer Stéphane Roy. In this parallel universe, it is the steam engine and not the internal combustion engine that reigns supreme. The set evokes the beginning of the industrialization era, but it is as if science and technology had evolved differently and progress had taken on a more human dimension.
The performance space is dominated by two structures called ‘rooms’; one explores the theme of sound and the other the theme of electricity. Built by the Seeker, using scraps and pieces collected over time, the two large towers also serve as ‘wave sensors’ made from various components such as gramophones, old typewriters, electric bulbs and turbines. In reality these objects were recovered from landfills and later disassembled, amalgamated and joined together through pipes and ducts.
The two chambers of wonders are connected to each other through the main arch – another wave sensor – which dominates the stage. The opening in the center, at the back of the scene, recalls the mouth of a railway tunnel crossing a mountain; it is mainly from here that performers enter and exit the stage and that equipment and objects are brought on and off stage.
The show is a tribute to imagination and curiosity. This alternate mechanical world celebrates the joining of pre-existing objects. “All these objects – the trumpet, the typewriter – have their own history and it is from their association that a new meaning emerges – says Roy – further proof that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Landlord is the Seeker, a humanist as naïve as she is ingenious, with childlike innocence, believes in an invisible world where the craziest ideas and the grandest dreams reside. He will discover that wonders are available to those who trust their intuition and imagination.
Then there are the curious, the inhabitants of a fictional country called Curiosistan and show up in the Seeker’s world to activate his imagination. An authority figure, Mr. Microcosmos is the leader of the group. A serious guy, embodiment of technological progress; his world is solid, represented by the steam train and massive building structures: the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais. Then there is Nico the accordion man who has a costume that allows him great flexibility in his movements, he can become very small or very tall, coming to look everyone in the eye. Then there is Klara who has a language of her own and embodies the obsession with telecommunications that man had during the golden age of the railways, when the telegraph and the gramophone were invented.
With so much work to do before his dream becomes a reality, the Seeker surrounds himself with a brigade of assistants including Kurios Winch and Kurios Plunger, two bizarre robots built from scraps and recycled parts by the Seeker himself. They are imperfect and dysfunctional creatures, they have a strong smell of metal and leather and the unbridled imagination of their inventor.
Divided into two stages, with a 25-minute interval, the show stages spectacular performances. These include an incredible number of stunts: a strong man and a porcelain-faced doll, awakened by an electric shock, emerge from their music box and come to life. The two artists climb to the top of an apparatus positioned almost 4 meters off the ground. Then there is another exceptional acrobatic number in which a girl jumps on her bicycle suspended in mid-air and, defying the force of gravity, assumes, one after the other, plastic poses: on the handlebars or on the wheel, holding only one foot or one arm. She even sits on the saddle, hands on the handlebars and feet on the pedals, but she and her bike are upside down.
There’s no shortage of contortion act as four creatures of the deep, embodying electric eels inside the Seeker’s chamber of wonders, come to life in this amazing, fast and fluid contortion performance. The female artists who perform this number bring to life a series of incredible pyramids and fantastic figures at an astonishing pace. Then there is the mime who runs a miniature circus with invisible artists. From swinging and high diving to unicycling on a tightrope, the shows all materialize in the mind of the spectator through the sheer power of visual and sound effects – a poetic and comedic nod to traditional circus arts.
The numbers follow one another to the amazement and amazement of the audience until the epilogue when a group of 13 artists performs spectacular sequences of perfectly synchronized acrobatics and human pyramids that showcase the incredible agility of the body. In addition to standing in three or four, each on each other’s shoulders, the artists hover in the air where they make evolutions and cross each other on three levels, on the ground, however, they move to a monolith positioned in the center of the stage, and in the audience.