Word: alegria
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Quidam tours California for the next year before heading to Denver, Dallas, Houston, New York City, Chicago and Atlanta. More buoyant than the 1994 Alegria, less self-consciously surreal than the '92 Saltimbanco, Quidam is prime, mature Cirque. It is beyond circus, beyond theater; it makes the incredible visible...
...convention, the cheery Latin dance hit Macarena, cited by Gore and mimed by Hillary Rodham Clinton and thousands of delegates, held a hidden message. The song (which is performed in the kind of lockstep the party wanted from its delegates) is an ode to seduction. "Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena," goes the chorus in Spanish. Translation: "Give your body joy, Macarena...
Cirque's triumph is that it has kept to the point, to its earliest mission of blending circus with theater. And if the meta-Broadway superproduction Mystere is the most theatrical of Cirque shows so far, Alegria is the most circusy, the most intimate, traditional, European. Though it boasts wondrous sets and costumes -- an aviary motif with acrobat birds in brilliant plumage -- it is dominated by the clowns, most of them Russian, with a dolorous wit and poignant stories to tell. In one sketch a clown-bird perches alone on a telegraph wire (a rope stretched across the stage) enjoying...
...Alegria is full of these delicate moments, laced with wonder. The "fast- track" act -- 14 acrobats racing and bouncing on trampoline strips embedded in the stage -- allows for both solo dazzledry and daredevil group synchronization; it's like a playground of gifted children who actually get along. So do the girl duos of tightrope artists (Chinese) and contortionists (Mongolian). And everywhere are the stately clowns, peering through their gilded, glassless mirrors at the enraptured audience...
...amazement can escalate into astonishment, that is the difference between Alegria and Mystere. From the black baby carriages at the beginning to the giant lumbering snail at the climax, director Franco Dragone peoples the stage with outlandish figures from a Bosch or Robert Wilson dreamscape. They have sad eyes or pinheads or faces on the backs of their heads, or they wander about pensively on stilt legs, passersby in the parade of life. They somnambulate while the acrobats somersault on a trampoline bent up at the ends, as others jump from one vertical pole to another using only leg power...