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Cirque Dreams Illumination was anything but illuminating. The show, which took place at the Collins Center for the Arts on Friday night, combined European cirque-style acrobatics and contortion performance with American theater and circus humor. It was mostly hectic, confusing and forgettable.
The part of the show that received the most attention from the crowd was when four people from the audience joined the onstage fun. A disheveled clown with a whistle instead of a voice conducted the four audience members in a mock movie production. One person played the lover, one the starlet, one the star and the last had the important role of wielding the clapperboard.
The audience had a fantastic time laughing at the expense of the people on stage. When the actors were caught doing something other than what they were directed to do, they received an earful of whistling from the clown who was directing. At one point, the clown, out of frustration, did a quick casting change by having the person wielding the clapperboard step into the role of the star and the star got demoted to the clapperboard wielder. The volunteers, if you can call them that, rose to the occasion and enjoyed themselves as much as the audience did.
Another memorable act was a hauntingly beautiful and sensual aerial performance that involved a water-filled bathtub. In combination with the music and the accompanying dancer, the act gave a feeling of love and longing and was one of the best choreographed acts in the program.
The popping artist received the intrigue of the audience by wrapping his leg around the back of his head more than once while moving with a hip-hop music beat. Popping is a funk style of dancing where dancers make popping movements. The person sitting next to me hid her face in her hands repeatedly while the performer seemed to dislocate every joint in his body. The performer left the audience in awe as he contorted his body in unimaginable ways.
The rest of the show was filled with stunts that were interesting when you could focus on them. The stage never emptied, so while one stunt was going on there were other things, like dancers and other unrelated people on stage, who distracted viewers from the main event. The rope acrobatics would have been interesting to watch but the distraction of another act, a man balancing on stacked paint cans, made it difficult. Many of the acts were shadowed in the same way. The contortionists are always a crowd pleaser, but in this show there was so much going on onstage that one could barely follow what the contortionists were doing.
The saxophone player was a good idea in theory, but in the end she turned out to be a distraction from the things that were actually worth watching — not to mention the saxophone was amplified so loud that ears were buzzing by intermission. The saxophone player was not the only microphone that should have been turned down. Unfortunately, the narrating/singing reporter was also so loud that the sound was actually piercing at times and one couldn’t really make out what she was singing.
The costumes were interesting and some of the stunts made a small impression, but overall the show wasn’t worth seeing. Cirque Dreams Illumination is a degraded and dulled down Cirque Du Soleil performance. They distract the audience so what they perform looks great, but in reality is basic and monotonous.
