This month we hear from three Cirque fans as they take in shows and concepts around the world. First, there’s “The Trickster” with a review of CREACTIVE at Punta Cana, followed by “MungoJerrie”‘s review of La Nouba on December 12th (the B-Boy act had just been put in place), and finally Aiden Lam gives us a new peek at Amaluna, in Paris on December 15th.
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CREACTIVE at PUNTA CANA
by: The Trickster
Hey folks, I’ve just returned from a stay at Club Med Punta Cana, where I of course attended Creactive every day. In a nutshell I thought it was a lot of fun and I tried lots of activities that I’ve seen in shows. The staff (aka. GCs) are really professional and nice.
It was a short stay but here are some activities I got to try:
Flying Trapeze: The usual at Club Med. You don’t actually do any catching unless you prove to be really talented.
Trampoline: I have a trampoline in my garden, but I’ve always wanted to experience the circus trampolines. And it was amazing. You barely need to push on your legs and you’re already flying up high. The staff really teach you basic techniques to get it right.
Aerial Silks: This was quick but I wanted to see what it felt like. So I climbed it and the GC taught me the foot lock and some poses using that footlock. I knew it was a stretchy fabric but it was even stretchier in real, and it hurts much less then Spanish Webs.
Vertical Wall: This was totally inspired from KA, and TORUK seems to have one too. Except here at Creactive it’s not a hard wall, it’s a massive stretched net, like a massive vertical trampoline. They teach you basic tricks like bouncing off it and then doing side flips. They also teach you how to run sideways on the wall, which is quite hard as you’re not allowed to push or else you bounce and flip and it’s just a mess. And I heard it was hard; so true! You don’t feel it right after, but your abs hurt for the next day or two. It’s also really hard to keep your balance on this wall.
Acro Bungee: This was probably my favorite activity. First the GCs teach you the basics of how to do a front flip and a back flip. And it’s much more complex than just kicking your legs. They then hoist you up pretty high, and then you gotta do the pulling on the bungee to bounce. And at first, before doing your first flip, you get really scared because you’re really high up, but once you flip, you realize it’s actually not that hard and that you just need to have arm strength and concentration. I ended up doing double back and front flips. This is the activity where I really felt like I was on stage; so cool. Doing flips on the bungee was really fun.
Juggling: Now I did this because it wasn’t my age groups turn to do the big activities yet, so I decided to learn how to juggle 3 balls. The GC is really talented. He makes you do a bunch of drills to ensure you work on coordination. And I actually managed to juggle for a few seconds!
SHOW: On every Sunday night, they have a Creactive show. It’s a basic storyline of a hotel guest that wants to try the activities. And the GCs showcase all the activities with Cirque music. The flying Trapeze guys were real good! They all were good. They’re all probably in the database.
Now there were some activities that I didn’t try or that weren’t available on the days I was there. i.e. Aerial Hoop, German Wheel. All the non-acrobatic activities I didn’t do. (Face painting, Mask Making, dancing). The also do bungee games for small children.
One thing that I didn’t like was that apart from Saturdays, you only had an hour at Creactive, as it was separated by age groups. But apart from that it was really amazing and if any of you are planning to go to Punta Cana, try out the Club Med! The Creactive space is really nice.
FUN FACT: The acrobatic master of Creactive was an artist at Cirque for 16 years. Flying Trapeze at Mystere and then La Nouba. He is the only artist at Cirque that has caught a quadruple flip on trapeze. It’s great to see they put experienced people in their projects.
Basically every day, the mornings are one hour for young children, one hour for young adults/teens. Then in the afternoon there’s 2 hours available for 18+.
Saturdays is family day for 2-3 hours in the morning, and afternoon is the usual 2 hours for 18+.
So there’s no sign up needed. You go, see what activities they offer on that day (Flying Trapeze is every day) and you go to what you want to do. The trapeze always has a little line, but the setup is big meaning sometimes they run two trapezes at a time. For the other activities, there was sometimes no one as I was first, or there was 2-3 people. Then this depends on how full the resort is because the week I went, half of it was closed for renovation. Also, from what I saw, if you’re waiting in line and the hour for your age group has passed, they will try and fit you in, a.k.a dig into their break times, they’re really nice.
You can do as many activities as you want! One day I did: Juggling, Trampoline, and Aerial Silks. But the activities won’t last 30 min. For most, it depends on how tired you get and how many people are waiting. And remember, you get tired quite quickly because it’s hot and humid outside. But once I did see a girl do aerial hoop for a good 20 min, there was no one waiting and she was quite good, so the GC was showing her a bunch of different poses. And if there’s an activity you want to try and you don’t like it, it’s fine, you can just do it for 1 minute and then leave.
Honestly I’m not sure about the non-acrobatic activities, but I know that on the schedule, they usually have one a day. For the age groups however, I’m not sure, don’t want to promise you anything.
LA NOUBA
December 12, 2015
By MungoJerrie
To celebrate successfully completing my first semester of grad school, I decided to pop over and see La Nouba on Saturday evening. This was my first Cirque show, back in July 2010, and since I have seen it four times. It’s by far my favorite show. I love the music, the immense amount of characters, the theme (which seemed appropriate), and the show has always been represented by unique acts. As we all know, La Nouba is undergoing some drastic changes and I had the pleasure of catching a glimpse of the new “B-Boys” act, better known as breakdancing! Like my previous viewing in 2013, everything seems to be in tip top shape. I especially enjoyed the new clown duo (we recognize them from Alegria); it was nice to genuinely laugh along. There’s so much life breathed into the production and even in an era where Cirque has been chipping away at the smaller details, almost all the ‘background’ that takes place during every act remains. I will say, though, it did feel as if the acts progressed at a much faster pace than I remember. But the show didn’t let out until almost 7:45pm, so perhaps I imagined it. The show is almost 20 years old and yet, it doesn’t feel stale. I think that’s the beauty of why we love Cirque du Soleil.
Opening/B-Boys: Still remains my favorite opening to any Cirque show, save for Dralion perhaps. The slow reveal of the attic’s mysterious inhabitants is wonderful and pure Dragone era Cirque. The new B-Boys act officially debuted last night, which was certainly exciting. I have never seen a break dancing act live before, so I don’t really know how to describe it other than, its break dancing. It reminds me of a very high paced acro-sport, but that’s far from what it actually looks like. Initially, I was apprehensive of this dance style coming into the show, but it fits the “live it up” theme well. It is composed of three male performers and they owned that stage. I wasn’t too fond of the costumes but an act of this nature requires a looser fitting garment. The only odd thing? Four male Urbanites ride around the stage on remote controlled skateboards during the act. Not sure what this represents, but it did add a new dimension to the number.
High Wire: One the best acts in any Cirque show. Everything from the act itself to the park like atmosphere created onstage is sublime. Liama continues to be a standout track and Sellane (sp?) is a phenomenal vocalist! Very happy I was able to see this before they remove it. Hopefully, Cirque will reinvent Liama for the new act, much like they did for B-Boys.
Diablo: Not as exciting as in previous viewings. I believe there is a new group performing because it wasn’t polished. That’s not a criticism since this is a high octane act that requires tons of mastery. I think a few more weeks and they’ll be in tip top shape.
BMX: Another one of my favorites and one we haven’t seen replicated in any other show, to my knowledge. The performer has a new costume which is dark lime and orange-ish in color, with a pair a black shorts worn over the outside. No new stunts here.
Aerial Silks: Again, one of my favorite acts in any Cirque show! The staging is magnificent, A Tale is always amazing live (I almost always scream when that slow beat drops), and it’s an all-around sexy act!
Rola-Bola: My very first time seeing this act live and also my very first time hearing A La Lune! LOVED IT! The performer brought the house down!! A real nail-biting combination of juggling and balancing, you can tell the entire cast enjoys this act very much. Le Titan and the Green Bird support throughout.
Flying Trapeze: Flawless as always!
PowerTrack/Trampoline: Such an energetic way to end the show. It really encapsulates the “live it up” theme of La Nouba.
AMALUNA in PARIS
December 15, 2015
By: Aidan Lam
This is my first show review so bear with me (especially since this was my first time seeing Amaluna live, having only seen it once on DVD before)…
So I watched the DVD and in all honesty really disliked it. Amaluna had the worst clowns, the opening few acts were dull and the music for some acts weren’t suitable BUT having heard about the numerous and drastic changes to the show, I decided to give it a go and my instincts paid off. The new changes have completely remodeled the show for the better and it is amazing!
*Opening: The opening remains consistent with the DVD, and the music, red cloth and ‘dance number’ (idk what to call it) is still a wow
factor.
*Hoop Diving: This is the NEW act I was most looking forward to and it was pretty good! So the lizards come on stage and for most of the trick used the hula hoops to jump through, which I found disappointing considering the guy holding the hoop kept moving it last second to help the jumper… But this was an act they were trained to do as a secondary thing after Icarian (I’m pretty sure it’s the Iris guys). The new music is much more suitable now and the final two jumps are done on Dralion style hoops which brought me back to that glorious show. The last jump itself has 6 hoops ontop of each other, similar to that of Dralion so I think they brought back that one Dralion artist into the show to do those two jumps while the rest was done by the Iris icarians. 8/10
*Aerial Straps: The acts I believe has added the storm goddess as a fourth artist. The three in blue (as per the DVD) still go around the periphery of the stage whilst the storm goddess (similarly dressed but in black) does tricks down the centre. Usually I find aerial acts boring (especially silks) but this was really interesting, especially with them flying up to podiums on the lighting columns and flying over the audience. 9/10
*Clowns: The clowns are now Miranda’s nanny (Mainha) who is NEW. They replaced the clown in the yellow drapes with a slightly plump lady with a broom, similar to the cleaner in La Nouba. The act centres around a flirtatious game between her and Romeo’s master (Papulya). These new clowns are better than before because it no longer has the pregnancy scene (which I found irrelevant and plain weird) but instead their is LOTS of kissing and Papulya staring at her bum which I still wasn’t a huge show. Seriously, I know there was the Kooza clown petition which was a bit extreme, but this act was borderline MA 15+ and I didn’t laugh once, as I did for other clowns eg Dralion), but it was much better than the original amaluna clowns. 3/10
*Peacock Dance: This act was fascinating in the way the artist twisted her body, reminiscent of the 1000 arms and stick dance. It serves as a short interlude before the next act which I liked because if it went on for too long I would get tired of it, but it was perfect in its length and I found the dance as enchanting as Romeo did! 8/10
*Aerial Hoop/Singing: This act never ceases to amaze. The brilliant voice of Marie Michelle Faber all whilst combined with her graceful athletics in the air is pretty special. Amaluna will probably struggle to find someone else capable of all those things in one. Our show didn’t see the moon structure, instead she just came down on the hoop, which was a little disappointing but if you didn’t know the show, it would seem normal. 8/10
*Waterbowl/handbalancing: Our Miranda was performed by the backup artist, a Mongolian girl with probably the longest, ad most difficult to pronounce name so I’ll just call her Miranda… She had great chemistry with the Romeo on stage and really captured the childlike quality associated with the plot line (which is much less strong in the new version). Her handbalancing was well executed, but I’ve seen it time and time again. This particular one was almost identical to a shortened Dralion one. I’ve never seen the Waterbowl live before this and I don’t think much of it even now. There isn’t much acrobatics involved, just diving into the bowl then jumping out again, however I did like he last part when Miranda is in the tank and Romeo sees her from outside. It reminds me of the fish tank scene of Romeo and Julliet in the Luhrman movie and the obvious connotations of their love story. 6.5/10
*Uneven Bars: I always thought this act was good, but I hated the old music. Luckily the show’s creators did too and have changed it to a new song (sorry, but I don’t know what it’s called). The acrobatics are amazing as always, however the absence of trampoline (as in Totem) makes the artists much more static, and the close proximity of the bars doesn’t let them do as any jumps, then when they remove the middle two, the outer ones are too far apart for them to swing from one to the other as I would’ve liked but considering there was no trampoline, it was very good, especially with the new music. 8/10
*Teeterboard: This act was extremely well executed, as per the DVD. The platform behind it allows the artists to get more height and so do bigger and better jumps. This reminded me of the Dralion teeterboard and I love it. This being said, since Dralion is more single jumps, I preferred that to the long buildups to the jump in Amaluna which slowed the pace a little. 7.5/10
*Stick Balancing (Manipulation): This is the same as the DVD and boy was it a hit for me. At times the sticks wobbled a bit too close for comfort but every time she managed to control it and everything went smoothly. I was extremely nervous through the majority of the act and hardly dared to breathe. That being said, the stupid “singer” kept sighing deeply throughout the song (during the quiet parts she acts as wind or something, but is so harsh that it sounds like a mini hurricane) and I was worried it would scare the hell out of the artist and cause the sticks to fall. Luckily the artist somehow ignored the singer’s “musical interruptions” which was my only criticism of the act (I’m referring to the singer, not the artist’s ability to ignore her just to clarify). 8.5/10
1000 Arms and Sticks: This act was really interesting and I haven’t seen anything like it live before. The only problem is that unless you are looking from the exact front of it, you don’t get to appreciate the spectacle of one person with many arms. Unfortunately for me where I was sitting, even though the stage turned, when it was facing me, nothing was happening on stage for the split second everything was lined up. Luckily it wasn’t a long act and the music suited the dance number well. 6.5/10
Chinese Pole: This solo artist was very talented, but I found it lacked the scale and impact from the music Saltimbanco had. If I hadn’t seen Saltimbanco before, I think I would enjoy it more, but I keep comparing it to the extremely powerful act which was one of my all-time favs. Still, considering there was only one pole and one artist, it was brilliantly done. 7.5/10
Juggling: It was Victor Kee. Need I say anymore? His acting is amazing as Cali and the fluidity of his body is amazing. The juggling itself was even better than Dralion with more variety than it. I found it all too short! But that’s probably because I love his act! The fire ball was really good as a final act, but because it only lasts 2 rounds, I think a more powerful finale could be a 8 or 9 ball juggle as is in Zarkana… Still, I’m so glad I got to see him before he leaves the show, next year I believe. 8.5/10
Icarian Games: This final act was nothing short of spectacular! The Iris style Icarian was really interesting to see live, although I think the Varekai one is still more interesting when they do the repeated loops of the man on the guy in the chair (simply because that trick in Varekai lasts at least double the time). Also I was extremely disappointed that one of the tricks they did was a guy doing a backflip from one person’a shoulders down to the lying down catcher. He missed the landing and fell off the catcher. They simply moved on and didn’t retry the trick which was VERY un-cirque-like and unacceptable! Other than that however, they were faultless and extremely good. The audience were very supportive when he fell, but I’ve seen numerous videos eg Quidam’s banquine or Totem’s unicycle bowls where they redo the trick when they stuff up and I was surprised they didn’t even try to get it right this time. 8.5/10
