A familiar blue and yellow Cirque Du Soleil tent has been hoisted up at National Harbor for about a month now. Halfway through their visit I decided to see what all the buzz was about.
Cirque Du Soleil has been praised for not having any animals in their shows. Some people aren’t fans of the circus because they view it as cruelty to animals. I feel making animals do tricks is unnatural and something they don’t really enjoy. You have to be strict in order to get a animal to cooperate and perform at its best, there’s no way around that. I praise Cirque Du Soleil for being animal-free.
What I was most interested in was the music. I have been a fan of circus music for as long as I can remember. It has a traveler’s sound with all sorts of interesting instrumentation like pipe organ, violin and accordion. I was worried that Cirque Du Soleil would be so modern that they wouldn’t include a band. That was far from the case; in fact, in Amaluna live instrumentation took precedence over the whole show. It progressed the story. The assumed ring leader introduced acts through powerful arias. She was a multi-instrumentalist playing cello and saxophone. The guitarist whaled on solos opposite each end of the stage as acrobats swung through the air. It was operatic rock with a epic presentation. The singers sung in a unique Amaluna language. The all-female band (Cirque du Soleil’s first) rocked out in vibrations of confidence, screaming as if they were releasing adrenaline. The music was original and that was the best part.
The performers playfully interacted with the audience throughout the night to keep us engaged. The acts were a mix between daring and fun, such as a male pole art performer sliding upside down from 40ft in the air stopping with his head inches from the ground, a lizard juggler (the guy was dressed as a lizard, not throwing reptiles in the air) and an extreme display of balance with sticks. It was a fun show! Even though it’s a modern circus there were still plenty of traditional circus elements, which I really enjoyed. I would definitely see it again.
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