Review: Part circus, part technology trade show, Cirque du Soleil’s Mexico-themed ‘Luzia’ opens in L.A.
Technology flexes its muscles in the latest Cirque du Soleil show to visit Southern California.
We know Cirque as a showcase for the limits to which humankind can push itself, but this time, machines have grabbed the starring role as the French Canadian circus — which reliably incorporates new technology into its scenic elements and acrobatic rigging — gives them too much of the spotlight.
Audience members may exit “Luzia” talking excitedly about the unbelievable contortionist from Russia or the daring strap artist from Canada, but first they’re likely to utter some variation on “The stage revolves!” or “Can you believe that rain curtain?”
The result feels less like a circus than some sort of high-end tech trade show, the acts seemingly rushed through on the way to the next gadgetry display.
“Luzia,” a traveling tent show, is being performed through Feb. 11 in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, then moves to Costa Mesa’s OC Fair & Event Center.
Its visual inspiration is Mexico. References to papel picado — those cut-paper banners we love so much — are everywhere, seen in the show’s bright colors as well as, more directly, in a massive circular curtain with cutouts.
Before the acrobats arrive, the stage is a field of marigolds. Soon a woman dressed as a monarch butterfly arrives, enormous puppet wings fluttering beside her. A wild horse, another puppet, races behind her. Hoop-jumping acrobats are costumed as hummingbirds. Other costumes and props suggest fish, a snake, an alligator, an iguana. Humanoid cactuses stroll into view. Vocal soloist Majo Cornejo wears a white gown, the skirt of which blooms with red flowers.
The music is driven by guitar, brass and percussion, evoking cumbia, banda, norteño and huapango.
As for the circus elements, the 10 or so acts (the number can vary) tend to display minute, fine-grained elements of artistry.
Of Tuesday’s opening-night performers, the one to draw the biggest audience response was contortionist Aleksei Goloborodko of Russia, a slim young man twisting his body into the impossible shapes we’re more used to seeing executed by women. Men in the audience groan in sympathetic pain when he bends backward so far that he is able to park his butt atop his head. Balancing on his hands or torso, he frees his legs to twist into filigrees. He is a human sculpture exhibition.
A coed pair of fútbol handlers — Abou Traoré from Guinea, Laura Biondo of Italy and Venezuela — keep a soccer ball balanced or spinning while executing dance-like moves that look like crunk or, in one particularly gravity-defying sequence, a breakdance spin.
Dressed as a lifeguard, Ugo Laffolay of France balances on one hand on the spindly, ever rising arms of his watchtower, torquing his body sideways and shaping his limbs into graceful patterns. A ballroom-like adagio features three men twirling a woman sideways into the air or swinging her like a jump-rope.
The show is performed on a circular stage that can revolve, but the big innovation is a rain curtain that releases a single, vertical band of showers into a basin below. Its nozzles can be individually controlled, dropping a lone stream to frustrate a thirsty clown waiting below to fill his canteen or, in the Act 1 highlight, releasing water in spurts and blank spaces to create papel picado-like patterns visible in the carefully focused light. Fish swim down the cascade, accompanied by birds, Otomi patterns and more.
Water enhances a couple of the aerial acts in spine-tingling ways. The performers are already risking life and limb, so to increase the degree of difficulty by making them deal with slippery surfaces seems almost absurd.
No one can deny the results, though. There’s a “Flashdance” sort of thrill as a woman on a sole trapeze (Enya White of Canada) spins in the rain, her long hair whipping off streams of water. Later, another long-haired beauty — this time a guy, Benjamin Courtenay of Canada — levers his body sideways from an overhead strap, occasionally dropping to a basin below to dip his limbs or locks in the water.
Still, the acts are mostly delicate. The show lacks, for instance, acrobats flying from trapeze to trapeze high overhead — the big-statement circus displays that more reliably induce gasps. So the powerful technology tends to steal attention. What’s more, it fights against the mystic, ancient vision of Mexico for which writer-director Daniele Finzi Pasca and creative director Patricia Ruel, with inspiration from the late Julie Hamelin, seem to aim.
There’s one smaller bit of humanoid technology, however, that is a sheer delight. Before the show begins, two small, silver robots — wearing upside-down watering cans as hats — tend to the field of marigolds. They groom the plants, wipe their brows and swat at flies, their electric eyes glowing expressively. No doubt they could do more. They are one technological accessory that no high-tech circus should be without.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Luzia’
Where: Dodger Stadium parking lot, Sunset Gate, 1000 Vin Scully Ave., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 4:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1:30 and 5 p.m. Sundays, some 4:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, other exceptions; ends Feb. 11
Tickets: Adults, $50-$145; children 11 and younger, $40-$135; VIP, $250-$270. Parking, $25.
Info: www.cirquedusoleil.com/luzia
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Also: OC Fair & Event Center, Lot G, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, Feb. 21-March 19
Twitter: @darylhmiller
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