La Voz

Media Credit: Photos by Chris Marks (2) [Click to enlarge]

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Tickets Class 1 (Blue) $85 $76.50 with student discount Class 2 (Green) $76 $68.50 w/ discount Class 3 (Orange) $45 $40.50 w/ discount Corteo is showing at corner of [Click to enlarge]

Emerging from a giant yellow-and blue tent next to Highway 87, a crowd of several hundred tries to understand what it just saw.

"What did that mean?," and "Did you see -?" float from one side to another. Unlike a classroom full of students at the end of a bad lecture, this crowd is delightedly confused.

What they've just witnessed is "Corteo," the newest traveling show from Cirque du Soleil, or Cirque to its friends. And their confusion is not unjustified; "Corteo" is a rare thing. A circus with a story, it uses rigid discipline to create the chaos of a dream trapped in a bottle, handing it to the audience for a chance to examine it while we're awake. And a dream is exactly the effect it wants to give. "Corteo" is a daydream from a clown, wondering what will happen when he dies.

Funeral processions, visiting angels, and memories from his childhood could all easily become somber moments, if the people within them weren't ultimately the clown himself. The procession can't stop itself from dancing. Angels take a break from their heavenly duties to flirt with other characters. A life-size puppet walks with the clown as a child.

"I've asked acrobats to think like actors," said creator Daniele Finzi Paseu, "to be as beautiful and honest as true love." But "Corteo" isn't all about a story, or even mostly. The show draws on that plot as an excuse to bring in performing talents from around the globe. Acrobats, trapeze artists and gymnasts all perform at the height of skill, augmented by a dazzling array of technology made all the more impressive by how infrequently it's visible.

In a perfect display of this interaction, one performer can be seen simply walking across a tightrope. Simply, that is, until the audience realizes that performer is walking on the rope upwards from underneath, defying every tenet of the laws of gravity. At other times, huge banks of lights will move in electronic unison and pieces of scenery will rotate themselves in and out of frame. Even the stage itself contributes more than expected through strategic openings and mechanizations.

And college-age audiences will likely enjoy Cirque's decision to set a faster pace than we've seen from previous shows. Action appears and disappears before anything has the chance to look commonplace, leaving only an impression of humor and awe.

Of course, the show features live music performed by a band and vocalist who are visible the entire duration of the performance. This is a detail that provides unquestionable value in personalizing any show.

Between work, new "Lost" episodes and school, it can be easy to let unique experiences slip through the cracks in our schedules. It can be even easier to walk away when confronted with the price of a ticket to the circus. But work doesn't make us happy, television won't look back at you to see your reaction after doing something amazing, and college doesn't have a clown flying around the ceiling. Crack open your wallet, take advantage of the student discount, and remember to thank La Voz later.



This article appears in the Feb. 6, 2006 print edition of La Voz.

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