By Luisa Terzulli
Alessandro Baricco [a popular Italian writer – Author’s Note] maintains that there is no sadder thing than a circus but boiled vegetables. I must admit that I have always been inclined to believe him. Until when a seat at the Royal Albert Hall gave me the chance to change my mind by opening, before my eyes, the incredible spectacle of Alegría, by Cirque du Soleil. Well, yes, it is about a pure circus, nobody is missing the roll call: trapeze artists, acrobats, contortionists, clowns who, as per tradition, pick out from the audience the improvised stooge to their gags… And yet, everything assumes a different dimension, it is not just a succession of acrobatic numbers: the whole of the multicoloured costumes, the band playing live, the guidance voices of the soundtrack slipping away during the show, the life that thrills in every movement, all of this makes the Cirque du Soleil quivers in all its theatricality. Alegría is not, therefore, an act for pleasure of the audience, but a dimension from which to breathe deeply while immersed in the sequence of performances, tales, or maybe vicissitudes? Who can say it, carried away into the life of this small wandering village?! And, in the perfection of the acrobatics and the lightness of their executions, a trembling muscle or the acrobat’s foot stepping back in search for the balance not seized at the first contact with thefloor can not help with recalling the humanity of this circus: it can not help with seeing the man hidden behind the perfect machine of the body swinging or taming flames.
The “Circus of the Sun” charms, fascinates, startles at times and also moves, but when the show comes to the parting, with a trip around the stage of artists, band and glitters strewn in the theatre, there are no boiled vegetables for it: this is alegría!
Copyright 2007 GIORGIOSTUDIO – All rights reserved
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