Day 30/365 - Cirque du So-So

I went to see Cirque du Soleil's new touring show Kooza with my friends Chris and Desiree tonight. Des liked it, Chris gave it a 6 out of 10, and I just thought it was okay.

The picture is of CdS' 'Le Grand Chapiteau', which I think may be French for 'the big top' but don't quote me on that. CdS comes to the DC area just about every year with a new touring show. Normally they pitch the big blue and yellow striped tent that houses the show in downtown DC, but this year they decided to hold it at the National Harbor over in middle-of-nowhere Maryland instead. Not the best idea ever. I'm sure they got a great deal out of it from the folks that run National Harbor, but it means (1) everyone attending the show has to deal with the traffic on the Woodrow Wilson bridge, (2) there are no meaningful public transportation options, and (3) there are no decent places to eat or get a drink either before or after the show seeing as how the National Harbor complex is basically a wasteland of dead bars, chain restaurants, and pay parking garages.

Kooza is more like traditional circus than most CdS productions. Instead of the interpretative dance, big production number, elaborate sets and staging approach of many CdS shows like Love, O, Varekai, and Corteo, Kooza is mostly just acrobats, tight rope walkers, contortionists, and jugglers. Generally speaking I love to see that kind of stuff, but I expect more than just that from CdS. When I go to a CdS show, I want to see stuff I've never seen before and stuff that really knocks my socks off. There were a couple of performance pieces like that in Kooza, but they were few and far between.

This was the least original CdS production of the eight different ones I've seen (Love, O, Varekai, Alegria, Corteo, Saltimbanco, Kooza, and Mystere -- which I'd rank in that order). There really wasn't anything very novel or creative about Kooza. The performance pieces weren't anything you couldn't see done (and oftentimes done better) at a traditional circus or a Vegas or cruise ship variety show for about half the price. Even the costumes seemed unoriginal and appeared to have largely been cribbed from various Dr. Seuss books and 'Nightmare Before Christmas.'

There were only two truly noteworthy production pieces in Kooza -- a trio of phenomenal contortionists in the first act and an impressive troupe of teeter-totter tumblers in the second act. There was a chair-balancing guy whose act was fairly cool, but even his routine was more 'hmmmm' than 'whoaaa.' Des really liked him, but I think that was largely because he performed shirtless and in tights. She's a hussy like that. (Kidding!)

So the final verdict from me for Kooza was that it was an adequate night's entertainment, but a CdS show should never just be adequate. It should be amazing. I can't really recommend it unless you're a hardcore CdS fan or you've got money to burn. Otherwise, I'd suggest saving your ducats for one of their other shows.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)