Cirque du Soleil - Corteo

[Drunk Monk]

It was on one of the many infamous ED-DM dormouse adventures that I first turned on to Cirque. It was between some rather epiphanous Dead shows. ED & I ventured to see this new show everyone was raving about (ED always had a good sense for great entertainment) - the big top was set up in SOMA and it was the first CA tour of Cirque. We were Xed out of our heads. In that state, it was simply amazing. I still remember ED fawning over the musicians, babbling at the speed of light, as he bought the CD. There was nothing like the great ED-DM dormouse daze, nothing at all.

Leap forward to 2000 and the premiere of Cirque's Dralion. Since it was Chinese-themed, I knew I could scam my way in working at the magazine. They gave me second row seats and I wrote this:
http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine...rticle=265 Dralion was good.

Then came the KA auditions. Cirque remembered me and asked for martial artists to be in the show. Somehow I cajoled the company to send me down to the set of Mystere in Vegas and I wrote a story on the auditions. A performer from O was there, a UK martial artist and a fan of my writing. He got me in to see O. O was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. It's the greatest of all Cirque shows.

I got comped into Varekai somehow. It was fun because the lead was the son of a friend of my mom's and a client of Stacy's.

Then there was KA. I got into the premeire. It was one of the greatest parties I've ever been at and I wrote about it here: http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/ar...rticle=595

So now Corteo. My mom treated us all to tickets. It was awesome. Corteo is the best touring Cirque show I've seen so far. It's a funeral dirge for a clown - exquisitely dreamlike. Flying beds and bicycles, women in lingerie cavorting on chandeliers, midgets and giants, angels everywhere, harlequins, whistling ringmasters with whips, upsidedown tightrope walkers with candlelabras, human puppets, and more, more, more. What a great show.

Man, I hope I can get into that premiere for the Beatles show...

[Haggis Killer]

...of opinion.

Of course, our family experience of Corteo was negatively influenced by the four year old we brought with us who spent almost the entire time squirming and saying he wanted to leave. As the second act progressed, it became shouting he wanted to leave. Mostly covered by the music, but still. The squirming became unbearable - fortunately close to the finale.

Looking back, we did enjoy it. Even the 4 yr old liked the bouncing on the bed routine. But I don't think it was as strong as the earliest couple of shows. I saw their second Cal tour, "Nouvelle Experience". Nothing has topped it, for me. It really was new and amazing and never to be forgotten.

Really, though, they're all great.

Next time, the 4 year old stays home.

[Drunk Monk]

Too bad about the screaming. That sounds miserable. Tara went to Varakai at about that age and enjoyed it, but we've had her at Trapeze Arts in Oakland, so she's hung out with a lot of circus people and knows what to expect (Trapeze Arts is where the Haight sisters trained, btw, those are the two wushu champs that have the lead roles in KA).

Our Corteo experience had some bumps too, but nothing like yours. Tara has this thing we call the 'potty wobble' - she wiggles in this particular way when she has to go. Of course, we had done the whole 'do you need to go potty?' prior to the show, but during the ring juggling the potty wobble had reached epileptic levels. She didn't want to go because she didn't want to miss anything. We finally convinced her. During the second act, my mom thought my dad had an incontinence episode because something he said in his aphasia-speak. It was awkward as you might imagine and parental incontinence is a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone. A while ago, my dad had this spell of explosive diarrhea for a spell when his meds were being adjusted and that was just awful. As it turned out, the comment at the show was a false alarm. He was probably just commenting on the potty wobble.

It occured to me that I only paid for my first Cirque show. Usually my addictions work the other way - ''first one's free"...

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I thought it was the most surreal of the shows. Drallion for me was the weakest (defined as "least diverse" mostly Chinese acrobats as I remember). Good time, as always. Besides, who wouldn't like to spend a few hours at the best funeral ever?