REVIEW: Travel to Mexico via Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Luzia’
Photo: Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia features a “Running Woman” sequence as the show explores the cultural offerings of Mexico. Photo courtesy of Matt Beard © 2017 Cirque du Soleil / Provided by Cirque du Soleil with permission.
NEW YORK — Cirque du Soleil has brought their latest big-top spectacle to New York City, and the journey that the audiences members enjoy is truly engaging and entertaining. Luzia, directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, celebrates the cultural offerings of Mexico, highlighting the music and themes of the diverse country.
The circus action takes place on a thrust stage that spins around, offering audiences ample opportunity to see the daring acts from multiple angles. A cleverly placed waterfall effect also douses the stage with beautiful rain, sometimes soaking the performers and always adding beauty to the proceedings. Giovanni Buzzi’s colorful and sometimes birdlike costumes are imaginative and fitting.
There’s one main clown in the show, and he brings the audience through his own personal journey into the heart of Luzia. From parachuting onto the stage to trying to figure out when the rain might fall again, the clown proves to be a narrative technique that connects the thrilling displays of acrobatics and derring-do.
The energy kicks up with a hoop-diving act that takes place on treadmills. This extra level of movement makes Luzia quite different than previous Cirque shows that have toured to the Big Apple. Hoop-diving is a common presence on a Cirque stage, but by adding the treadmill element, a new dynamic is achieved and an additional level of danger is present.
A sequence titled “Adagio” is inspired by Mexican cinema and features a trio of performers throwing another performer to and fro. The movements are graceful and balletic, as if this were a dance rather than a feat of acrobatics.
The hand-balancing act is certainly a highlight. Each time the audience believes the performer has climbed to his highest, another set of poles and platforms emerge. By the end of the act, this muscled man has ascended to the top of the circus tent.
Football, or soccer to American audiences, is also celebrated with a sporty sequence featuring some expert ball kickers. The sequence offers some diversity to the spectacle, which is appreciated. Cirque always finds a workable rhythm that finds the right number of oohs and aahs.
A swing act featuring a performer wearing a luchador mask is perhaps the most high-flying of the entries in Luzia, utilizing the expansive space of the big top and truly instigating audience members to look up with simultaneous wonderment and dread.
The contortion act certainly goes down as the grossest, most how-does-he-do-it moment of the evening. The performer crawls around a platform with unbelievable flexibility, in an almost arachnid fashion, and more than a few circus-goers had to look away because the human body simply shouldn’t bend like that.
A Russian swing act, a frequent finale for Cirque shows, puts a winning capstone on an evening of thrills and cultural offerings, proving that Luzia is an expertly realized show in the company’s canon and one of the strongest big-top spectacles to ever make its way to New York City.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Luzia, from Cirque du Soleil, is currently playing under the big top at Citi Field in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
