Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai has just ended its London run and transfers today to Manchester but I was lucky enought to catch one of the final shows last week at The Royal Albert Hall. 

The plot is simple: a young man falls from the sky into a magical world populated by fantastical creatures who pop in and out of the floor, up and down poles and through the air in a two hour spectacle that feels more like 20 minutes.

In the traditional Romany language of the gypsies, Varekai means ‘wherever’ and the acts, costumes, music and verbal interjections of the show flow along seemlessly in a global nomadic melting pot that transcends time and place. 

Sure there’s plenty of the troupe’s famous aerial acrobatics but some of the ground-based routines come as close to flying as you can get.

Lucha Libre, Poi twirling, mime, House of the Flying Daggers style marshall arts and ballet with etherial Indian headdresses-cum-dreadlocks are all part of the experience.

The winning combination of the sublime and the ridiculous throws a noise bottling machine worthy of Dr Seuss and a magician and his hapless assistant into the mix for good measure. At one moment you’re attending a Full Moon Party and at another you’ve strayed into the realms of Finding Nemo.

What sets the Cirque apart is the apparent lack of effort of the troupe. No one ever seems out of breath and amazing aerial rope-work would have us believe that their bodies were completely weightless!

I also loved the fact that in true circus tradition, the performers are a complete mix of shapes and sizes proving that you don’t have to look like an extra in High School Musical to perform gravity defying feats with grace and dexterity. Not that we actually realised until half way through as he seems simply to use them as a piece of gym equipment, but one of the performers is actually on crutches!

From its beginnings in 1984 as a group of 20 street-performers in Quebec, Cirque’s 1000 artists have gone on to delight almost 90 million spectators on five contintents. The troupe is back in London at Wembley Arena in July with its Saltimbanco production so get your tickets now!

www.cirquedusoleil.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under General, Lifestyle, Venues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.