Dralion: Cirque du Soleil’s assault on the senses

Cirque du So-LAME! That’s right. I said it. We’ve got better options locally.

August 13, 2012; 7:22 AM • by Susan Howson

There’s a right way and a wrong way to watch Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion.¹ The right way to watch is with an open heart, a set of experiences that’s low on artistic performance memories, and a slight hearing problem. The wrong way to watch Dralion is during the summer Olympics.

The legendary Canadian acrobats of Cirque perform physical feats that, frankly, are easily topped every night by the athletes we watched the past two weeks. That’s not their fault, they’re not trying to win gold medals. And, truly, the tumbling, aerial hooping, and trampolining that happened at the Coliseum this weekend was all very impressive. I certainly can’t do it. But for the money (and it’s quite a bit), I want to see something phenomenal.

In Dralion’s case, any phenoms are obscured by the retina-melting costume colors, overly scattered choreography, and music…oh, the music! Imagine if Trans-Siberian Orchestra abandoned Christmas songs for some vaguely world-type stuff and then played it at full volume without using any dynamics whatsoever–that would come close to the rockin’ jams peppered by tribal grunts that these folks twirled around to. I was actually surprised to figure out that it was live music, as it sounded so much like a tinny yet in-yo-face recording.

At the first of these trumpeting blasts into colorful oblivion, Little Buddha (Charli K) appears, along with the four elements: Fire (Dante Adela), Air (Amanda Orozco), Earth (Dioman Gbou), and Water (Tara Catherine Pandeya).² Buddha carries a glowing hourglass, and the elements dance with fixed smiles on their faces in costumes that seem to represent Africa, India, China, and…maybe France? It’s great to have a theme. You can’t put on a show without it. But this theme quickly unraveled into seemingly unconnected cameo appearances by each of the four elements.

I know, it seems crazy to nitpick things like costumes and music when these guys can form a human pyramid AND THEN JUMP ROPE, but those stagecraftian elements are so busy and overwhelming that it’s hard to see past them to the guy doing a handspring through a hoop.

Beyond the hoops and the juggling, a little magnificence shone through: the “Diabolo” ladies (Guo Yuze, Zhang Jianan, Fulli Yang, Zhi Yanan, Zheng Miaomiao, and Li Zhaoyan) with their spools-on-sticks thing and the clown fellas were wonderfully entertaining. The clowns (not the scary, red-nosed kind, but the more subtle, Italian-speaking tuxedo kind) did some audience participation stuff that was truly hilarious and unexpected. Possibly because they were the least gaudy of the whole deal.

So Dralion’s fine if you’ve got money to burn, but it’s nowhere near the infectious glee and painstakingly practiced showmanship of Kodo or the graceful athleticism of the Richmond Ballet. And it certainly doesn’t touch Olympic gymnastics, diving, or, hey, let’s be honest, even synchronized swimming.

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August 13, 2012 7:22 AM 3