October 29th, 2009
Cirque du Soleil at Madison Square Garden
In Quebec, Canada in the early eighties, a group of young performers formed the High Heels Club. This was a group of people who performed amazing moves, while perched atop very tall stilts. There were jugglers in the company as well as fire blowers, and thus circus of Cirque du Soleil had begun. The High Heels Club began holding festivals, to gather around them other people with the circus in their blood, to exchange creative ideas, to learn from each other and to credit and to appreciate the talents of everyone.
It was not long before these performers decided to gather together under one “big top” and finally the company of Cirque du Soleil was born in 1984. This is a company that fuses the street with the art, with the circus. Stories are told in beautiful ways through costuming, subject matter, music, lighting and dramatics. They traveled around a bit for two years in Canada, gaining quite a following, and in 1987 made their first United States appearance in California, USA. The crowd was stunned and amazed.
They added shows, cities and tour dates, and the audiences kept getting bigger. The piece that pushed them over the edge, of the top, was Quidam. This is my own personal favorite, a beautiful story that is illustrated through such delicate, creative and talented means. From here they moved into cities such as Las Vegas, with regularly occurring shows. There are home companies in various cities around the world and traveling companies producing and putting up new shows. Their goal is to defy the limits of perceived reality and to break the rules of traditional theatre and circus.
And beginning on November 11, running through the 3rd of January, they will be performing their winter show, “Wintuk” at Madison Square Gardens. Book your best Manhattan hotel room now, because just as the seats fill up for their shows, so to will the hotels in the city. More than fifty people will take the stage throughout the show. And illustrated will be winter, the cold the long and intense shadows, the cast of extraordinary and spooky characters, and the story of a boy, lost in the city, and setting of on a journey to bring light to an Arctic World. Amazing.
