Cirque du Soleil

Tonight we went to go and see Cirque du Soleil perform as their tour had brought them here to Phoenix. The show we went to see was called 'Kooza' which derived from Sanskrit means "magical container". 

Kooza tells the story of The Innocent, a melancholy boy in search of his place in the world. The show combines two circus traditions - the art of clowning, and acrobatic performance. The boys journey begins after opening the magical box, the Kooza, which takes him into a world un-known bringing him into contact with a range of characters including the King, the Trickster, a Pickpocket, an annoying tourist, and a bad dog. Who at one point actually peed on a woman in the audience, she didn't seem too thrilled.

The show was funny and entertaining, but it also made you feel like you were going to pass out or have a heart attack. Our jaws were already firmly heading towards the floor from the start, but by the end they had practically hit the ground and gone under. The amazing flexibility of the acrobats was so impressive, at one point it didn't even look like human bodies anymore - more like a snake form because of how they were bending. Not to mention the two guys who were on a spinning centrifuge (which was un-surprisingly called the wheel of death) without any rope or wires and were actually jumping on top of it, whilst spinning very fast, and at one point he even started skipping. I was watching behind my hands with only one eye peeping out during the act, it was horrifying to see, I actually thought he was going to plummet to his death, which just made it even more gripping.

We weren't allowed to take cameras in with us for various reasons, so all photographs here are from the Cirque du Soleil website for Kooza.

So there you have it, the show was truly amazing. The amount of times 'oh my god' 'no' 'NO, NO WAY' 'they're really going to do that?!' and... 'ARE YOU KIDDING ME?' was both said and heard, speaks for itself. It's something you need to see with your own eyes, and I'd highly recommend anyone to do so. I'd love to see a different Cirque du Soleil show to see how it would compare, though I'm betting that it would be just as fantastic.

You can watch the wheel of death for yourself here: