{"id":15365,"date":"2014-11-15T14:34:09","date_gmt":"2014-11-15T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=15365"},"modified":"2014-11-18T17:11:18","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T01:11:18","slug":"cirque-du-soleil-spotlights-low-tech-touches-of-brilliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/cirque-du-soleil-spotlights-low-tech-touches-of-brilliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Cirque du Soleil spotlights low-tech touches of brilliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cContortion\u201d is a highlight of Cirque du Soleil\u2019s \u201cKurios \u2014 Cabinet of Curiosities.\u201d Photo by Martin Girard\/shootstudio.ca<\/p>\n

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\u201cMicrocosms,\u201d with \u201cMr. Microcosmos\u201d and \u201cMini Lili,\u201d is a key element of \u201cKurios \u2014 Cabinet of Curiosities.\u201d Photo by Martin Girard\/shootstudio.ca<\/p>\n
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\u201cChaosSynchro\u201d showcases choreographed bedlam in \u201cKurios \u2014 Cabinet of Curiosities.\u201d Photo by Martin Girard\/shootstudio.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Back to basics.<\/p>\n

That theme might best describe Cirque du Soleil\u2019s \u201cKurios \u2014 Cabinet of Curiosities,\u201d now ensconced in a tent behind A&T Park in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s different with this 30th anniversary show is that it strives less for innovation, more for familiar circus acts.<\/p>\n

Umpteen acrobats. A jillion mid-air stunts.<\/p>\n

Writer-director Michel Laprise has said he was aiming for \u201clow-tech\u201d astonishment \u2014 and a blending, of course, of fantasy and reality.<\/p>\n

Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n

Most of the dozen acts in the two-hour, time-traveling \u2018Kurios\u201d have touches of brilliance \u2014 despite most of the most being spectacularly unspectacular.<\/p>\n

None of which fazed the opening night crowd one iota.<\/p>\n

It applauded, cheered and stomped as loudly as audiences at any of the dozen Cirque shows I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

Devices and costumes, as always, are amazingly inventive and somewhat mysterious, ranging from a huge metallic hand that converts into an underpinning for contortionists, to freakish nose cones that look like throwaways from an old show in which Madonna utilized them on a different part of her anatomy.<\/p>\n

The music meanders, too \u2014 from the strains of an invented language, typical for Cirque performances, to traditional jazz, swing and electronic rock.<\/p>\n

Tossed in for good measure are bluegrass, klezmer and classical passages.<\/p>\n

My favorite interlude was the unique \u201cTheater of Hands\u201d segment in which a puppeteer lets his fingers do the dancing in comedic and poetic ways, projecting images unto a hefty floating balloon overhead.<\/p>\n

In contrast, my seven-year-old granddaughter, my plus-one for the evening despite it being way beyond her bedtime, preferred \u201cInvisible Circus,\u201d where a clown leads an unseen troupe in numerous stunts while an equally undetectable lion roars from hither to thither.<\/p>\n

The illusion\u2019s sound effects are exquisitely timed.<\/p>\n

Oldster\u00a0and youngster both particularly enjoyed \u201cChaosSynchro,\u201d staged bedlam with countless arms and legs flailing as two performers drum wildly on suitcases and whatever else\u2019s handy, and its antithesis, \u201cContinent of Doubles,\u201d with a hunky, bare-chested male duo doing sensual, synchronized dancing on aerial straps.<\/p>\n

The crowd, meanwhile, favored \u201cContortion,\u201d with four females twisting their bodies into seemingly impossible positions.<\/p>\n

It also reveled in \u201cUpside Down World,\u201d in which a guy negotiates table and chairs dangling from the tent-top while another hand-climbs perilously stacked chairs to meet him.<\/p>\n

Burned into my memory, too, are weird curios that exit an oversized cabinet and come to life in a bizarrely mechanized world, and a trampoline that extends beyond than stage itself and lets gymnasts to bounce higher than I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

My grandchild also was impressed by the three performing artists who greeted ticket-holders by prancing atop the big blue and yellow tent which that houses \u201cKurios,\u201d which, not incidentally, features 19 nationalities in its cast and crew.<\/p>\n

Speaking of other<\/em> places, only 150 million devotees apparently have watched Cirque du Soleil shows in 300 cities on six continents.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy to be among them.<\/p>\n

\u201cKurios \u2014 Cabinet of Curosities\u201d plays in the big top behind AT&T Park in San Francisco through Jan. 18. Night performances, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinees, Wednesdays, 1 and 4:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 4:30, and Sundays, 1:30 and 5. General tickets: $53 to $135. Information: (800) 450-1480 or www.cirquedusoleil.com\/kurios<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at\u00a0voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a>\u00a0or check out his new blog at\u00a0www.vitalitypress.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 4.5] Back to basics. That theme might best describe Cirque du Soleil\u2019s \u201cKurios \u2014 Cabinet of Curiosities,\u201d now ensconced in a tent behind A&T Park in San Francisco….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"