Cirque de Soleil returns this season with all of its prowess and enchantment with a brand new show, ECHO. In it, Future, a charismatic woman from the clouds along with her lovable wolf-dog companion, Ewai, encounter a giant white cube that leads her to a world of anthropomorphic animals and creatures and a geometric “steward”. Future marvels at all their feats and helps reconstruct the cube before returning home. Punctuating stunning acts of aerial feats, contortionists, and acrobatics are two funny clowns. Undercurrents of protecting the environment and biodiversity are a subtle but present thread.
Cirque du Soleil does so many things well and so consistently, that it’s easy to sink in the spectacle and its fluid movement from one act to the next. There’s always something to watch, whether on stage or in the audience itself. The opening act sets the scene with the cast appearing in white animal costumes representing the diversity of animal life on the planet — koala, seal, llama, frog, and many others. Some performers run up and spin round and off the sides of the massive white cube as if gravity didn’t exist at all. The music is so seamlessly integrated that had the musicians not occasionally appeared playing instruments and singing in their black, antlered costumes, I might have forgot they were performing live.
The acts, of course, are performed by some of the fittest and most talented athletes on the planet and represent a global cast. There are flying poles, bungee straps, banquine, teeterboards, hair suspension, a contortionist, juggling… exactly what one expects from Cirque du Soleil. This is no ordinary circucs. Each act is executed to perfection which definitely allows for more than a few oh-my-Gods and gasps.
It’s always hard to pick out one act that is better than the others. Two “fireflies” that spun each other round from their hair was beautifully executed with elegance and sophistication. A duo that combined hand balance with contortion inside the cube as it turned to represent animals that had died (or perhaps gone extinct) was lovely and poignant. I found Ewai so charming during his juggling act that I loved it for his infectious personality alone. The eagles on the triple teeter boards at the end as the performers jumped from one to the next, each doing a unique pose in the air, were fabulous.
The costumes are brilliant, a combination of animal-life, geometry, the sky, and a touch of minimalism. Think of clouds taking on recognizable animal shapes that had gone from fluffy to polyhedral at their edges. Future and Ewai wear baby blue with a pattern of familiar, round fluffy clouds painted on their costumes, which remind me of Nintendo’s Mario, especially with Future’s overalls and newsboy cap. Of course, with her flaming red hair and big smile, she is ever eye-catching and at the end, dazzles with her own trapeze act.
Cirque du Soleil returns again with its time-tested formula: the storytelling theme of stepping out of the familiar into an unfamiliar world. The audience is along for the journey, identifying with Future and Ewai, as they witness and grow. The Cirque team makes the story flow so that each act plays a part carrying along the subtle message about the interconnection and interdependence of all things.
ECHO is at Quai Jacques Cartier in the Old Port from May 22 – June 27. Tickets and info HERE.
