Kooza Dress Rehearsal

I got tickets to the dress-rehearsal of Kooza last night in Philadelphia. Working for the Cirque du Soleil has perks. And WOE!

This is one insane Cirque show. The story is simple or so I think anyway. An Innocent receives a package out of which The Trickster escapes like a jack in the box. That alone is an impressive effect. Soon the after the acrobatics begin.

The Highlights for me were The Trapeze, The Wheel of Death and the Pickpocket.

The Pickpocket.
He takes some unsuspecting spectator on stage under the guise of teaching him a magic trick but during the show he steals everything from his pockets including taking off his tie without the spectator noticing and it his hilarious.

The Trapeze.
This solo trapeze artist wiped her ass with the Saltimbanco Twins. Her Hard Rock themed show with hyper-kinetic moves was insane and just ROCKED. It was like a clean stripper show on a trapeze instead of a pole. Just awesome.

The Wheel of Death.
Hamsters in the wheel on crack. This is so batshit insane I can’t properly describe it. It’s a spinning device with two wheels at each end in which two acrobats do a lot of spinning and jumping and drive the crowd to the edge of their seats.

The Music is an incredible blend of eastern fusion, with hard-rock and jazz that really sweep you into the action, the lighting is brilliant, the costumes deserve some sort of prize and all the performers are pros. And there’s a drum solo to keep you distracted as they set stuff up that would make Bonham proud.

I can’t wait to see it again.

And today at work we got a little gift, the brand spanking new soundtrack to Kooza that pops open into a cube