Join the Cirque-us

Our favorite French Canadians are back

Comments (0) By Jamie Laughlin Thursday, Apr 5 2007

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When you drive through downtown Miami and see a giant tent erected along the causeway’s bank, you think one of two things: Cirque du Soleil, or mass-termite genocide. Those custom-built big tops have become synonymous with Soleil. They usually double as playground and dormitory for the traveling cadre of high-brow carnies; but like any snail’s shell, the tents are time-consuming and difficult to move. In that less-mobile format, the spectacular performers can only visit seven or eight cities a year. And let’s face it, once you commit to running off and joining the circus, you want to cover a lot more terrain than that. Hence Delirium.

“This is certainly more of a rock and roll style of touring,” laughs Caroline Montreuil, Delirium’s traveling PR gal. In this new Soleil production the performance is designed to illuminate existing venues, which means those hypnotic tall men and gravity-defying acrobats will stagger and float through many more regions. The premise of this production is similar to other Soleil vehicles, except that Delirium’s creators decided to move the musical elements to center stage. The goal was to remix songs from other Soleil performances and blend them together, making them more upbeat, and in turn transforming the banal auditoriums into magical, exotic nightclubs. Add in a couple of oversized scrims gliding back and forth above the 100-foot floor stage, and more acrobats than you can shake a $25 program at, and you’ll be thankful you quit dropping acid in the Nineties.
April 4-7