Review: Seeing Cirque du Soleil's ECHO is Like Discovering Another World Only Two Hours from Ottawa

The summer season in Montreal isn't really here until Cirque du Soleil opens its Big Top in the Old Port. This year, the Cirque has brought back Echo, which held its world première in the city three years ago. Echo tells the story of Future (Louana Seclet-Monchot) and her playful pup, Ewai (Philippe Dupuis and understudied by Henrik Veres). On their journey, Future and Ewai happen upon a giant cube and, when Future interacts with it, hybrid creatures emerge from the cube to teach her about Earth's relationship with humans and all living creatures that inhabit the planet. Future learns how her own actions, no matter how small, can have a profound impact on the surrounding nature.

Echo has a slightly different atmosphere than other Cirque shows I've seen. The imagery is lighter overall, with a white and neutral colour palette accented here and there with primary and secondary colours. This lightness is in contrast with the band, led by two singers (Kaja Mianowana and Daniel O’Brian), who are clad entirely in black.

The cube is the focal piece of the spectacle, projecting images of nature on each of its sides as the creatures simultaneously perform a ballet of sorts in lifts above and onto the cube, anchoring them to the reflected world. It is also a receptacle that houses the creatures and certain performances inside.

Also different is the absence of daredevil acts. There are no fire eaters or motorcycles on tightropes in Echo. The show is relatively understated, preferring to focus on the athleticism of its performers and, especially, highlighting the cooperation, balance, and mutual trust required for each feat. This is especially obvious with the Teeterboards and the Human Cradle. The Teeterboards act has a series of three see-saw like boards, where six performers at a time simultaneously jump, bounce and flip onto neighbouring boards. In the Human Cradle, the acrobats climb onto each other's shoulders and are, quite literally, tossed to another group. In either of these acts, if one person loses their footing or misses a cue, the results could be disastrous.

Two aerialist fireflies (Penelope Elena Scheidler and Danira Quintanar) are joined together by their hair, which is equally breathtaking and slightly disturbing to watch. Once again, mutual trust is essential for the act to succeed.

When Ewai juggles an increasing number of balls, it seems to demonstrate how, even though humans sometimes have competing interests, they must balance these with the Earth and the rest of its inhabitants’ needs, never dropping the proverbial ball on anyone.

The most theatrical segment of the show arises when a giant marionette in the form of a man emerges from the Cube and Future sits in the palm of his hand. It is unclear if this represents a creator figure or someone from the future, but nevertheless, its scale is truly impressive. 

The acts are interspersed with Cirque's signature, family-friendly clown skits, designed to cleverly take the audience's attention away from the set-up and tear-down that comes with changing acts. They also provide interaction between the performers and the audience. In Echo, much of the attention is on the duo’s, aptly named Double Trouble (Naël Jammal and Thomas Gaskin), unexplained need to stack a ridiculously huge number of boxes, symbolizing the industrialization of the world. As the final box teeters towards the sky uncertainly, I could not help but wonder, much like the unprecedented pressures the Earth is currently facing, what would it take for it to all come tumbling down?

The Fossorial, Echo's contortionist (Indrajit Kumavat), is extremely talented, even if it can be somewhat difficult to watch him dislocate his joints. The fact that he emerges from a hole in the floor in a lizard like headpiece is a visually striking touch.

Despite the odd sobering thought, as a whole, Echo evokes joyful feelings, choosing to focus more on maintaining relationships, rather than what a fallout would look like. By the end of the show, the animals are safely housed back in the cube and Future and Ewai can take what they've learned on the rest of their journey and, hopefully, help make the world a better place. 

Although Echo is not my favourite Cirque show, it is a solid offering, with incredibly talented artists, stunning projections, beautifully crafted costumes, and full of metaphors that provide food for thought.

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