“My Thoughts on Koozå: A Personal Review of a Preview Performance
By: Wayne Leung – Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)
Posted: Apr.21.2007 on CirqueTribune
[This post contains some minor SPOILERS]
I just got back from the second preview performance of Koozå.
Unfortunately, since Jason is injured and Ross hasn’t been integrated yet there was no Trickster tonight, and the show really suffers without one of its main characters. The staging was all adjusted for the absence of the Trickster so I’m looking forward to going back and seeing the show the way it was “intended” with a full slate of characters.
Overall, this show has some of the most high level acrobatics in Cirque du Soleil, however, at least right now, it also has the weakest artistry and overall presentation I’ve ever seen in a Cirque show.
Koozå is all about death-defying stunts, there were a lot of edge-of-your-seat moments, like when the performer on a highwire 30 feet about the stage without a safety harness or net, fell after a jump and just managed to catch the highwire to avoid falling and breaking his neck . . . this aint no cheap fake-out Corteo highwire slip business, it’s the real deal.
Four individual acts received standing ovations: Highwire, Wheel of Death, Juggling and Teeterboard but as for the artistry . . . what artistry? There was none to speak of.
The show lacks a unifying concept, it’s clunky, there’s no fluidity, the characters aren’t well developed and it basically feels like a random assortment of circus acts thrown together without any integration into a theme.
The imagery was weakly defined and random, varying between pseudo Dr. Seuss to Tim Burton (Nightmare Before Christmas) to Vegas lounge act. There wasn’t any semblance of story or purpose to any of the show.
The choreography was absolutely atrocious, I mean it was embarrassingly bad. The performers seem a little more confident in the execution of the choreography than at conference time but the design of the choreography itself is really amateurish, the dancing looks like a bad high school musical.
The music was disappointing, most of the music doesn’t have a lot of structure, there aren’t a lot of well-defined melodies, the arrangements sound very generic pop/rock. And because of the weak artistic integration most of the acts don’t perform to the music, it’s basically just background music most of the time. The music has none of the evocative qualities and creativity we’ve heard from past Cirque composers. But if Corteo was any indication, most of the music for the show will probably be re-written anyway which is a good thing in this case.
The musicians are all very talented, it just doesn’t seem like they’re given much to work with in this show. The singers are pretty good; Theresa has a strong, soulful voice, Tara was a little less confident but still sounded good, however there are very few vocals in the score right now.
The costumes are very well done for the most part. Even if a few seem odd and out-of-place, the infamous Juggler’s costume (which admittedly doesn’t look as tacky in real-life) and the Chair Balancer performing in a Sumo thong. Some of the costumes are very gimmicky and they’re creative but because of the lack of a unifying theme they’re just flashy for the sake of being flashy.
Given that David Shiner is the Director, the comedy in the show is surprisingly weak. There are a lot of slapstick pratfalls, probably too many (as amusing as it is to watch someone getting bitch slapped by a raw pork chop, it’s considerably less funny the 378th time). There are plenty of pick a schmuck out of the audience bits but none of them come anywhere close to the quality of Shiner’s brilliant numbers featured in Quidam. The best comedy bit was definitely the Pickpocket. The rest of it was pretty boring.
The show did have some moments that I thought had a lot of potential to be expanded into something better. Daria Vintilova performs her trapeze act wearing a bad-ass rocker chick costumes (she looks like she stepped right out of a Guns ‘N Roses video) and with a little more character development and choreography she could really take that act to the next level but right now it’s a far cry from the beautifully evocative solo trapeze act she performed in Saltimbanco.
With the right music and choreography the Duo Unicycle has the potential to be something beautiful and moving instead of just a run-of-the-mill circus act.
The Mystic Pixies have a very strong technical act (although, only 3 of the 4 performed tonight, this may be a usual thing so that the fourth can be rotated in and out) but the music and choreography do nothing for the act and the presentation is extremely weak compared to say, contortion in Alegría or even the act in Nouvelle Ex.
There is one beautiful moment in the finale with The Innocent but it falls just short of being truly moving because there wasn’t enough character development throughout the course of the show for it to be meaningful. Other than that the show was completely devoid of emotion . . . well unless you count “OMIGOD he’s gonna fall and break his neck” an emotion.
On a general note, there are a lot of numbers that are a bit too long and tend to make the show drag.
So right now I’d say Koozå needs a tonne of work. It is a pretty good circus show but it’s an extremely weak “Cirque” show. Without massive changes I don’t see it as being anything more than an expensive “stunts” spectacular. While the show has an amazingly high acrobatic calibre just about every other aspect is very sub-standard for a Cirque du Soleil production.
