Speaking of Overpriced Touring Musical Events...

Last night I saw the "Delirium" company of Cirque de Soleil at the lovely Conseco Fieldhouse. Since I can't currently think of anything else to ramble about tonight, I'm going to review the performance. (Ironically, the tickets cost about as much as an over-marketed touring Broadway musical, but I didn't pay, so there.)

For those of you who don't know, Cirque de Soleil is a performing company that specializes in acrobatics, music, and other circus-style entertainment. Cirque troupes are basically a circus on high-concept steroids. The costumes are beautiful and artsy, the set pieces are unpredictable and fascinating, and there is a seriously weird but aesthetically amazing visual approach to the entire thing. There are at this point something like ten different troupes performing all over the place. Three of them have permanent homes in Las Vegas, for instance, but as new troupes are developed they are sent on international tours. Each troupe has a different approach. For instance, one of the Vegas troupes is called "O" because their entire performance is based on (and in and under) water (French for water = eau = "O").

The coolest thing about any Cirque performance is the number of completely impossible or unexpected physical feats that take place. To get the idea of what I'm talking about, right click here and download a very abbreviated performance by a Cirque troupe at a recent Oscars.

So you go to a Cirque performance expecting eighteen Bulgarians to leap into an inverted human pyramid while juggling knives and wearing amazing lizard costumes, or similar. It is a show that makes you smile for two hours straight because everything you're seeing is beautiful and impossible. This is what I was looking forward to when I walked in to "Delirium" last night.

I started to fear we were in trouble when there was an opening band. "World renown musical artist" Nitza played about six world music/vaguely Middle Eastern tunes with a bunch of accompanying musicians playing strange instruments like the sitar, the lyre, and possibly a hurdy gurdy. All six songs sounded basically the same, and we couldn't tell if Nitza was singing in English or not.

After a twenty minute break following Nitza's set, the show started. I had heard that "Delirium" was going to focus on video projection and music (in the same way that "O" focuses on water), but what we ended up watching was one very long and visually stunning music video. There were some incredibly cool images projected on the massive video screens, and the choreography and timing of the live performers synched with them in nifty ways. The entire thing was very pretty, but I was incredibly disappointed when, over the course of an hour and forty-five minutes, only about four impossible physical feats were performed. The rest was a lot of modern dance and world music played on cool instruments and around weird and colorful set pieces. Quite frankly, I got a little bored. I kept waiting for the really cool stuff to happen, and it never did.

So, much more than ten minutes later, I offer you this: If you get a chance to pay too much money to see a Cirque troupe, definitely take the chance, but make sure it's not "Delirium" unless you really like world music.