Running now till Sunday November 6
It’s hard to know what primordial compulsion first seeded the love of Big Tops in our collective consciousness, but the moment you spy those garish turrets and whorls of hypnotic colour rising from the Entertainment Quarter, your heart starts to speed. There’s something so immersive and otherwordly about the circus – even before you step inside the tent you’re already in thrall. Particularly with a troupe like Cirque du Soleil your anticipation is particularly heightened; after all, it’s rather safe to acknowledge them as the world’s premier circus performers.
The last Cirque production I saw, Totem, was a grand if confusing affair. At the time I wrote of it seeming cobbled together, which is perhaps the fate of any production that has so many disparate acts lassoed together for widespread appeal.
But Kooza is different. In stepping back to more traditional circus arts – clowning, tightrope, contortion, balance – we are allowed the opportunity for a much clearer narrative arc. Sure, it may still be a simple storyline, but it’s there and it’s entertaining. Visually engrossing, childlike in its sense of wonder, Kooza is like a waking dream.
To that end, the costumes are a thing of wonder. While each performer’s acrobatic prowess keeps your eyes glued to the stage, their wardrobe is just as crucial in bringing each character to life. This culminates in a Day Of The Dead-esque revelry of darkly delightful creatures from the netherworld.
But it is of course the skill of the performers that stays with you – that and the exceptional live band, who maintain a wonderfully shifting, cinematic tone. Twin contortionists Odgerel Byambadorj and Sunderiya Jargalsaikhan are a remarkable early highlight, drawing many an appreciative gasp from the audience. Similarly, the Wheel Of Death routine, arguably the production’s centrepiece, will have many folk on edge, and the twin-tightrope shenanigans similarly inject the show with a welcome shot of danger.
Not that you want anything to go wrong, exactly. But amazement can be frightening, and where Kooza works best are the moments when we are all as one; when no one, not even the performers, can entirely be sure this next trick will land and we wait, heart in throat, to witness feats of imagination and dexterity we could never be capable of ourselves.
