If so, the most intimate and circuslike of Cirque shows, newly landed in Philadelphia and called "Kooza," will really surprise you, thanks to a creator named David Shiner who's steeped in traditional, one-ring circus arts.
"I wanted a more traditional show, a show created around the artists, not on all the stuff around them," explained the writer/director recently. "I wanted to take the high-tech out of it, to really get back to the basics."
The costumes are still magnificent, sometimes offbeat and occasionally a bit unsettling (unless a Broadway-style chorus line of skeletons and a carpet of dancing rats is your idea of dreamy).
The world-conscious music coming from the traditional, circus-styled bandstand also is true to the Cirque performance-art school. This time, the score mixes a rock core with the spicy rhythms of Latin America and India, and featuring a singer Shiner first heard in Mumbai.
But listen closely. Some of the lyrics are in English this time, not that otherworldly Cirque-gibberish!
Clowns also have more to say in this one show, in recognizable speech, than this fan has seen collectively in seven or eight Cirque shows. "We're playing in the U.S., so why not talk in English?" said Shiner.
Another difference this time, the plotline can be boiled down to a one-line essence: Innocent, kite-flying fella waves a magic wand over a box; out pops a jester and we're off to the circus - a particularly terrific circus - where acrobats and clowns rule the roost. (But no chickens, or elephants, or tigers.)
By the way, "Kooza" comes from the Sanskrit word kaza which means both "box" and "treasure."
Born in the U.S.A.
