Cirque Du Soleil - Saltimbanco
Last night I was lucky enough to be able to see Cirque Du Soleil’s re-tour of Saltimbanco, 
and it rocked. Again. Two Cirque productions in the last year I’ve been to, and both of them melted my brain. Acrobatic feats aside, (and they were astounding), I was drawn more to the production aspects of the show….sound, lights, the technical wizardry of it all. This show was far less sophisticated technically than Delerium, but no less riveting. The standard Cirque melange O’ colour and costuming was in full effect, but the band, sound and lighting was what sold me. There were 5 or 6 people running the front of house rig, which consisted of a rather large and complex looking digital SoundCraft board, 3 apple laptops, and a bunch of hardware that likely had to do with communications and lighting. Very very impressive. Fortunately, our seats were just beside this setup so we had just about the best seats in the house from both a sound and visual perspective. Pre-recorded and live music blended seamlessly without a hiccup. Not one bad note, not one botched chop or wrong fade. Just amazing. I was struck again by how effective simple lighting and colour use can be on a stage, something I think bands could employ easily, more thoughts on that here.
I believe I now have to see every Cirque offering that comes through town. As a study in how to grab an audience and take them for a ride, there probably aren’t many better examples. I’m fascinated with the concept of suspending disbelief, the vehicle that horror movies are predicated on, and Cirque is a fantastic live execution of this idea, though not so much making us believe its real, rather simply getting us out of our day to day and totally wrapping our senses up and delighting them.
If you haven’t seen a Cirque production, do yourself a favour and get thee hence.
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