December 2010

Cirque Dreams Holidaze

The Fox Theater 

Reviewed by Lucy Moorman

December 21-29, 2010

This is a light-hearted Christmas show with brightly-colored costumed ornaments coming to life on a stage that is filled with floor-to-ceiling toy soldiers and a giant Christmas tree. Some ornaments sing, some dance, some are elves, but there are plenty of white-knuckled moments of acrobats, trapeze artists and contortionist circus-type performers who do impossible things with their bodies.

In Everyone’s Flipping Out, four performers from Ethiopia are costumed as gingerbread cookies. While two performers are lying down, they toss two others back and forth with their feet, the tossed performers landing in various balancing poses. Another impressive act are the twins from China called Two Times Fun Ornament who playfully pull their extremely limber bodies through long narrow tubes with their heads meeting up with their feet. Among the cast of characters, there’s an Ice Queen, Ragdoll, Santa and his Helper, Flying Reindeer, Skipping Elves, Slippery Penguins and Aerial Angels to name a few. You get the idea of the frivolity. In Symphony of Bells, the elves pull five “random” (or are they plants?) folks from the audience to ring Christmas bells at varying pitches that becomes a comedy act and a concert in and of itself.

Created and directed by Neil Goldberg, Cirque Dreams Holidaze comes from Goldberg's Florida-based Cirque Productions, which since 1993 has been producing touring shows such as: Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy and Cirque Dreams Pandemonia. Cirque Dreams has 5 uniquely different productions touring throughout the U.S. and is not connected to Cirque du Soleil. Cirque Productions gives many talented young performers from all over the world a chance to run away and join the cirque. Over 150 very talented and skilled individuals compose, design and invent these productions with collaboration and their imaginations. The stage design and brightly colored sparkling costumes are a “joy to the world.”

At times there is so much happening on the stage, it’s hard to keep up with the girl spinning numerous hula-hoops on various parts of her body or the young man rolling and spinning around inside a ring but for the most part, the pacing keeps the show exciting. It is appropriate for all ages but I think the young ones would be the best audience. Dust off your Christmas spirit and rush down to the Fabulous Fox theatre to catch this show, playing until Wednesday, December 29th.

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