Review: CIRQUE DU SOLEIL CORTEO at Chase Center

Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil has been a crowd favorite since its inception in the early 1980’s and this show has been circulating since 2005. This incarnation presented on an impressive two-sided rotating stage is sure to please audiences with the beauty of the staging and the spectacular artistry of the acrobats.

There is a chasm between American circuses and what Cirque presents. We love animal acts and funny clowns, Cirque deletes the former and as to the latter, their clowning is abstract and esoteric and not ha ha funny. Corteo’s story from its advance press sounds impressive, but live is comes across muddled and almost incomprehensible partly attributable to foreign language text and music and bad sound.

I got that it was about a dead clown’s funeral and ascension to heaven, but what transpired over the two-hour show was pretty much a head scratcher. There’s a Yiddish term, hazarai, for excess junk and Corteo had a preponderance of it. Most non-acrobatic segments seemed like time fillers (a strange Teatro Intimo staging of Romeo and Juliet fell flat) between the real meat of this production- the sensational physical acts we come to see. Those moments are well worth the admission price.

The talented cast performs a vast array of traditional circus skills: juggling, hula-hoop, the Cyr wheel, and trampoline. The choreography is top-notch highlighted with props and expert lighting. Like a live puppet, an artist marionette appears in an innovative, rigging apparatus, a ladder specialist wows while climbing a free-standing ladder and a woman does a pole routine on a non-stationary pole. A high bar routine with multiple gymnasts and a teeter-totter tumbling routine were off the charts.

Corteo looks beautiful and has a dreamlike quality consistent with their other productions. Plenty of floating angels, scrim work and a huge cast keep the eyes occupied, although it maddens me when the acrobatic numbers are distracted by this. The costuming and set designs were beautiful and the score, both taped and live band were unusual and intriguing. This is a great show for families and lovers of the resurging circus arts displayed with great skill.