Event preview
Cirque du Soleil’s “Totem”
Opens tonight under the big top at Atlantic Station. Tickets available through Dec. 23, but run expected to be extended through the holidays. 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays; 4 and 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 1 and 5 p.m. Sundays. $43.50-$105.50; $33-$77 ages 12 and under; premium and VIP packages also available. 1-800-450-1480, www.cirquedusoleil.com/totem.
Daring to be different
Asked what in “Totem” is different from anything Atlantans have seen in prior Cirque du Soleil shows, artistic director Tim Smith detailed two acts:
- "I'm privileged to work every day with a troupe from Mongolia. They're on 9-foot unicycles, flipping these [metal] bowls on top of their heads [with their feet] to music and choreography. It's full of grace … Just the skill set, I've never seen before, and obviously it comes from far away."
- "Cirque has created an act that we call 'Lovebirds,' a static trapeze, hand-to-hand act. What that means is it's a trapeze that's hanging about 30 feet in the air, with a couple that does hand-to-hand manipulation to a story [of teasing seduction] and to music. It's a new discipline and it's a special part of the evening."
Can the topic of evolution be made lively on stage, be transformed into something that's even, dare we say, hot?
Generally, we would think not. But at the hands — and feet, calves, hips, posteriors, torsos, six packs, shoulders … oh, you get the idea — of Cirque du Soleil, we’d submit that anything’s possible.
Starting tonight for a run that’s expected to be extended through year’s end, Atlantans can judge for themselves as “Totem” opens under the lofty blue-and-yellow Grand Chapiteau (big top) at Atlantic Station.
It’s the Canadian circus’ 28th show since its 1984 founding and the 13th to visit Atlanta since 1991. Following on the heels here of slithery, sexy insect stars (“Ovo,” 2010) and Michael Jackson moonwalking to throbbing beats (“The Immortal World Tour,” June-July), “Totem” would seem to have some tough acts to follow.
Yet reviews from Washington, the tour’s most recent stop, suggest that the Darwinian-themed show is a (pardon) natural selection.
“Totem” “traces Homo sapiens’ development from grunting apes to grunting men who turn flips wearing neon spandex,” the Washington Post’s critique cheekily noted. “Humanity has never looked this superhuman.”
At this late date, the Canadian circus would seem an unlikely candidate to reinvent the wheel, its shows always powered by breathtaking movement, ethereal music and cutting-edge multimedia production.
But Tim Smith, who was running the Cirque warhorse “Alegria” when he was tapped to take over as “Totem’s” artistic director nearly a year ago, said these signature elements can always be more finely honed.
Yet even Smith admits he had his own doubts as to whether Cirque could reinvent, or at least top, itself before he watched the new show for the first time.
“When I went to see ‘Totem,’ that’s exactly what they’d done,” he recalled. “There are brand new acts that have never been seen before in Cirque, and the technology is so advanced, there are effects that we’ve never seen before either.”
Opening on a stage in the shape of a giant turtle, a symbol of origin in some ancient civilizations, the flashy, acrobatics-sparked circus depicts humanity’s journey from its amphibian state all the way to man’s attempts to take wing. The title “Totem” is symbolic as well, connoting the order of the species, how humanity rose from the primordial swamp all the way to the lofty heights of the thunderbird that tops many of the hand-carved poles.
Aboriginal aesthetics — in the projected imagery, stage sets, costumes and music — recur throughout the two-act, 150-minute production (counting a roughly half-hour intermission).
Experienced Cirque-goers know that story is important in some of its shows and barely there in others. Artistic director Smith said “Totem” falls in the middle of those extremes.
“Other theatrical experiences kind of drive your mind from point A to point B,” he said. “Especially with ‘Totem,’ I like to say we give the audience the crayons. They are allowed to imagine, they are allowed to explore their thoughts, because the pictures are so avant garde and so non-specific.
“We could sit next to each other,” he continued, “and you would have a whole story going on as to what it means for you, and I’ll have a different one.”
Of course, a Cirque show don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, and “Totem” delivers plenty of eye-popping acrobatics, as expected.
Japanese performer Umi Miya, who worked eight months helping prepare the show before its April 2010 world premiere in Montreal, is one of four acrobats in the opening act, “Carapace.” He takes pride that “Totem” rocks from the start rather than establishing a mood slowly.
“Compared to other shows, our opening is very, very strong,” he said. “We don’t slow start, we do quick start.”
A national junior champion gymnast who trained at Tokyo’s Tsukahara Gymnastics Center with Japanese Olympians, Miya is one of the quartet of springy frogs who launch themselves in the air from a power track to parallel bars. In glittery green costumes, they leap and flip from one bar to the other, criss-crossing in midair with mere inches to spare.
Later in “Totem,” Miya portrays a monkey, but “Carapace” is his big number, the opening act a prestige slot, so he tries to be alive in the moment.
“Every show is the first time for most of the audience,” he explained. “I’m doing the show hundreds of times, but still always trying to be fresh with everything.”
Cirque productions always appear to be a study in precision and, indeed, “consistency is the goal,” according to “Totem” band leader Charles Dennard. Still, Dennard said, the musicians can change tempos depending on how things are moving on onstage.
“I’m taking cues from the stage manager, I’m conducting the band, but I’m also watching the artists and reacting to them,” said the keyboardist, a native of the middle Georgia town of Gordon.
“If you go see a Broadway show, the artists follow the music. It is what is, that’s how they wrote it,” added the well-regarded New Orleans music veteran, a protege of jazz master Ellis Marsalis. “Well with us, we follow the artists, so it’s a little more open-ended.”
From behind marsh reeds at stage rear, the six-member band and two lead vocalists (a female one from Ghana, a male native American from Quebec) perform a score mixing indigenous American, Spanish, Indian, African and Asian sounds, Dennard said.
So there’s exotic music. Projected images from far-flung places such as Iceland, Guatemala and the Space Station. Brightly hued and sometimes simply bright costumes (including one covered in 4,500 tiny mirrors and crystals). And general production hocus pocus.
Frappe those elements together and “Totem” intends to send circus-goers into the night feeling elevated from the ruts of the daily routine.
“When audience members leave, they’ve seen characters and experiences going beyond natural boundaries,” Smith said. “They can take that to their everyday life and dream, dream past the ordinary minutes of the day.
“And I think that’s what a theater experience should do.”
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