Here’s some arts and culture for you here on the old blog about everything, and then about nothing blog. Went and saw Cirque du Soleil for the first time ever having only ever caught parts of it on TV whenever it’s been on, but not for at least five years I reckon. The only thing I knew about it was colour, French Canadian (maybe), human circus, a cross between a circus and a ballet, and trampolines!! But, I was certainly excited to see it, and have had intention to watch it before, so yes, on Australia Day 2013 we had seats to see the show. Out in the Docklands, the show is under a circus top rather than in a stadium where I sort of recall seeing it performed when I’ve seen it on TV before. Unfortunately they don’t let you take photos or video of the event so I don’t have any photos of the event or performance to post here, just a picture I took of the Bolte Bridge while waiting to the loo outside. The show seemed to be “A Bug’s Life” on stage sort of, with all of the characters dressed up as some kind of bug, spiders, a butterfly, a fly (I think), a beetle (maybe), grasshoppers, moths, and a bunch of other creepy crawlies that I have no idea what they were. Basically, it’s split into a bunch of groupo performances and several solos, and a lot of singing and dancing as well. There were four solos, the first on a slidey pole apparatus, the second was a bit of rhythmic gymnastics, he had a twirly spindle and a string, did some yo-yoing and juggling, the third was a dancing slinky, and the last was on a tight rope. Of the solos, I think the tight rope was the most impressive, I’m not 100% sure but I think the twirly spindle may have dropped the spindle once or twice, the dancing slinky was funny but nothing special, the other two were really impressive works of hardcore gymnastics.

Bolte Bridge outside Circue du Soleil oVo at Docklands.

Don’t know if I can remember all of the group performances as there were many and my memory isn’t the best, there were two tandem performances from what I can remember, the two moths on a rope which was most certainly the scariest performance as they were going up a good 20m in the air and hanging by one foot loop, or being held by a length of a foot, scary and beautiful stuff. The other tandem was the spider display, I really liked this one, probably cos I’m a guy, the two spiders had to be girls, I’m sure of it, so flexible, and kicking those legs every which way, hot! Great stuff, definitely two of my favourite performances.

Group performances included girls with drums, girls holding each other and kicking and catching each other with their feet, trapeze artists, and the trampolinists! The drum girls were cute balancing and spinning the drums with their feet, and the trampolinists did that classic bouncing off the floor trampoline and running up the wall (one of my favourites just because it looks so fun!). We had pretty good seats but for the trapeze artists we had part of our view obstructed by a light tower, they were up high, and flying higher, scary stuff (even though there is a net), they did make one mistake where the flying trapeze artist didn’t quite land in the right spot (fell a bit short I think).

We had a great time, it was a really good show even with a short five minute period for crowd interaction, there was a thirty minute intermission (which is when I took the picture out the back) and the whole show went for about 2 hours (plus the intermission). Obviously there are some parts that are a bit slower where it’s just dancing happening, but that is probably necessary to give everyone a break. Really good family entertainment, and entertaining to the hilt, yeah, it was worth the price of admission, $140-$150 or so, preferable seats would be in section 200 (towards the right facing the stage) I think to avoid the light towers.