Over the past few years, I have become a huge Cirque du Soleil fan. As a dancer, it would be a dream come true if I could perform with Cirque du Soleil (and I’m sure many of you dancers reading this feel the same way!) My family tries to see all the Cirque shows that come to Southern California, so of course I was excited to hear that Corteo was coming here! My uncle bought the entire family tickets the day they went on sale, so we could get tickets for Friday, August 24th which featured a question and answer session after the show. We got great seats (back row of the front section) so we had a great view of the show.
Because we had such great seats, we had a front row view of the pre-show entertainment (they have a clown act involving the audience before every show). This occurred in the aisle behind us, so we were right next to the actors. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you this: it’s hilarious, and it involves water. And popcorn. So those in the rows in front of and behind the aisle might get a little wet or get popcorn on them. So don’t wear anything too nice. 
What first struck me about the stage is that it isn’t a traditional Cirque du Soleil stage, where the stage is circular and has the audience sitting in a semi-circle around the stage. Instead, the stage was similar to the stage used for Delerium (a Cirque du Soleil show that was in LA last year… it focused more on the music than the acrobatics and dancing. My boyfriend took me to see it for my birthday last year :D) - a more elongated stage with the ends blocked off as wings (entrances and exits for any non-dancers) and the audience sitting on either side… you could look across the stage and see the other half of the audience on the other side.
As always, the show was fantastic. This wasn’t my favorite Cirque show that I have seen, as I am still completely in love with Varekai (:D), but it was definitely a very well produced and choreographed show. To quickly explain the idea of Corteo: the main character is a clown, performed by native Californian Jeff Raz, who dreams of his funeral. He dreams that all of his friends have come to his funeral, and are reminiscing about how wonderful a person he was, and how much they loved him. I don’t want to ruin the entire show for you, so I’ll just go over a few of my favorite acts.
The first act was the Chandelier act. The performers use the chandeliers in the same way as the arial hoop. In my opinion, the use of the chandeliers provided both advantages and disadvantages to the performance. At first I did not like how they had strings of beads hanging all around the central metal hoop, because when the performer was inside the hoop it at times made it difficult to see her. Later on in the act, I realized the benefits of the strings of beads hanging all around the chandelier. They provided extra places that the performers could hold on to, so it opened a whole new world of possible tricks for the performers, in addition to allowing two performers to use a single chandelier at the same time.
Another act that was a lot of fun was the Helium Dance. Here, Valentyna (one of the little people) was hitched up to a bunch of huge helium balloons, and released over the audience. Every time she would come down, whichever audience members she was over would push her back into the air and she would yell “Whoops!” and giggle. It was so adorable - she looks like she is at least the age of my parents, but in Corteo she acts as if she were a child! (I don’t mean that in a bad way… it was adorable!)
My favorite act of all was the opening act of the second half. During intermission, you could see stage hands constructing a huge trampoline that spanned the entire stage. The act started with acrobats running and doing flips along the trampoline. They had beautiful costumes - long white and gold flowing pants which fluttered in the air as they flipped. If you looked up, you can see three men strapped into frames connected to the ceiling, and several girls up there with them. One of the acrobats on the trampoline jumped up… and up… and up… and a man in one of the frames caught him and began to swing him. He kept swinging, and then let go! The acrobat flew and was caught by the next catcher, and then dropped back down to the trampoline. They then transitioned to a Korean trapeze act, using the girls who were up on the frames with the catchers. It was a beautiful and breathtaking act - definitely my favorite of the night.
Overall it was an amazing show, although there are a few things that might have made it a bit more enjoyable for me. Although we were not right up against the stage, we were still close enough to see into the wings. There was nothing covering the view into the wings, so you could see people getting harnessed up for parts where they “fly” across the stage. It was a little distracting, but didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the show too much. Another problem wasn’t exactly the fault of Cirque… apparently all the other venues that Cirque usually uses in Los Angeles were booked, so they had to be at the Forum in Inglewood. The problem with this is that it is extremely close to LAX - and right in the path of incoming airplanes. So throughout the entire show we were hearing the rumbling of planes coming in to land at LAX. A bit distracting at times, but again, not too bad.
After the show, we stayed for a question and answer session. The creator of the show, the director and the main clown were there to provide a little insight about the show and to answer a few questions. It was a little disappointing, since they only answered 5 or 6 questions, but it did provide some insight into the show. For example, Daniele Finzi Pasca, the creator and director of the show, explained that the concept for the Chandelier act came from a memory of how he and his brother used to try to climb on his grandmother’s chandeliers (with disastrous results). Plus, my cousin won a 20th Anniversary Cirque du Soleil book, which is pretty nice.
