OVO by Cirque Du Soleil

OVO by Cirque du Soleil
OVO by Cirque du Soleil at Mall of America

I finally got to see OVO by Cirque du Soleil at the Mall of America on Sunday.

It was amazing.

If you’re not familiar with it, Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun) is a theatrical take on the circus, minus the animals. It’s a remarkable mix of gymnastics and choreography and theater, featuring trapeze artists, jugglers, tight-rope walkers, trampolines and contortionists and climbing walls and stilt-walkers amidst an artfully-designed set and backed by superb musicians.

One of the joys of athletic performance is the feeling of command one has over one’s body when you’re able to make it perform the athletic feats necessary to excel. If you can appreciate that, you cannot fail to appreciate the phenomenal athletic performances Cirque du Soleil offers.

As if that weren’t enough, take that athleticism and throw on top of it a layer of unbelievable choreography that synchronizes a handful of performers juggling oversized kiwi, and themselves, without missing a beat.

Cirque Du Soleil, Ovo
Photo of Cirque Du Soleil, Ovo courtesy of Mute Reportage on Flickr

The entire performance is backed by a live band performing an original soundtrack of wonderful compositions by Berna Ceppas. Found at YouTube from Ct8u.

The set design was both subtle and heavy handed at the same time. During the song Cacoon, a performer is suspended above the stage swathed in sheer cloth, mimicking the metamorphosis into a butterfly so seamlessly, with the help of stage lighting, that the whole thing reminded me of animation by Gerald Scarfe.

Likewise, the set featured a giant, phallic stalk of vegetation and an oversized, unfolding flower that made their appearances during key romantic scenes. These, two, reminded me of Scarfe heavy-handed sexual imagery. Found at YouTube from floydiantheo.

Wrap all that together and it amounts to an amazing experience.

Safety Fart

Sure, call me juvenile. I don’t care. I giggled at this, as I often do when watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force:

This, of course, is a parody of the 80s hit, Safety Dance:

A Scanner Darkly

This is totally cool. There’s a new movie coming out called that’s based on the novel by science fiction writer . He’s the same mind that brought us and the classic (upon which . A Scanner Darkly is written and directed by and, like his previous , is done using the animated technique called rotoscoping.

Anyone who knows me knows I love animation and this movie looks awfully cool. The movie has the same and  that’s probably because it looks like Linklater got Bob Sabiston, the animator who worked on both and the Schwab commercials, to work on A Scanner Darkly. Watch the trailer below or for a longer trailer in QuickTime format–it’s worth the download time.

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Links for February 23, 2006 – Vikings Stadium, Craigslist, Online Graffiti, Sharing Web, Animation

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