CIRCUS
Luzia ★★★★
Cirque du Soleil, Flemington Racecourse, until May 26
The last time I saw Cirque du Soleil in Melbourne, it felt like the end of the world. Kurios opened in late March 2020, days out from COVID lockdown, and on entering the big top, we all filed past hand sanitiser stations for the first time. The show in front of us was transporting, and worry bowed to wonder as we watched elite acrobats fly like clockwork through a steampunk universe.
Cirque du Soleil returns to Melbourne with Luzia. Credit: Nicole Cleary
Cirque du Soleil is reliable like that and for them, the new normal is the old one. The juggernaut of international circus continues to produce what has become its signature: jaw-dropping feats from the cream of international circus artists, framed by colourful fantasias that immerse viewers in a wonderland of elaborate scenography and costume and world music.
Billed as a “waking dream of Mexico”, Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia trades steampunk for maracas and mariachis.
It begins, as Cirque du Soleil shows often do, with a clown on the cusp of adventure – in this case, jumping from a plane without a parachute – and soon unlocks a dreamscape drenched in the cultures and customs and natural beauty of Mexico.
It isn’t above a bit of Mexican cheese – random sombrero drops, some pretty adorable cactus costumes – but most of Luzia is more elegant and otherworldly.
Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia is elegant and otherworldly.Credit: Nicole Cleary
A particularly eye-catching sequence imagines an aerialist on trapeze and two acrobats on Cyr wheels as nature spirits whizzing through and under a waterfall. (It’s a sight to behold: stage rain is one thing, only a colossus like Cirque du Soleil has the production values for an entire waterfall.)
Gravity-defying display is a highlight. The strenuous acrobalance of a muscled lifeguard nailing one-handed handstands high in the air. A straps routine performed glistening wet. A striking aerial finale launching acrobats like missiles across a revolving stage.
The ground-based tumbling and ensemble acrobatics are terrific, too, and other acts of extreme physical prowess take a turn in the spotlight.
Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia is billed as a “waking dream of Mexico″.Credit: Nicole Cleary
A dazzling sequence inspired by street football involves a performer break-dancing while holding a soccer ball aloft with one heel. There’s no less dexterous baton-juggling, and the show’s main contortionist drew audible gasps with an eerie, almost serpentine display of hyperflexion.
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Cirque du Soleil isn’t the biggest innovator in contemporary circus these days, but that’s largely because the world-class spectacle it makes has become so successful. And if Luzia isn’t groundbreaking, it does deliver an acrobatic fiesta, wrapped in the kind of magical variety spectacular that has made the company such a global phenomenon.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
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