Dear Sketchbookers,
I am starting to write this the next morning I attended the most amazing show I have ever attended. I had other things planned for this morning, but I am dying to share it with you, and I don’t want to forget anything later on. It also came at a very precise time in my life, as I am making a story about a circus, and it will help me explore this world a lot further!
Let’s begin:
I booked the tickets to Cirque du Soleil “Kurios” in January, I believe. It was around the time I was making reservations for Thailand, but I didn`t want to wait till we came back, where you just get the last seats available (they have now extended the dates, so there are still some good seats, in case someone is keen of going). We chose seats that were neither in the center nor in the first rows, but they were very decent ones! As a reference, there are only 25 rows in this small tent. We were a bit on the side and in the 12th row, which is still an amazing spot! I believe that if I went to this kind of seat in Mexico, the price would have been like 3 to 4 times what we paid (because they make it in the biggest forum available!), so I knew those seats were worth it. As a little note, this was my third time seeing the Cirque du Soleil, but it was by far my favorite time!
We arrived 30 minutes before the show and we looked at all the souvenirs, they had explorer googles, hats, masks, backpacks, sweaters, and everything in between! I was excited to see so many atypical things over there and more because the show was about to begin!
We found our seats 5 min before the start, and some of the characters were already on stage. It felt magical, like arriving in a steampunk world full of crazy scientists and magic. Before the show began, I started sketching frenetically, I wanted to capture so many things. When the show started, I surrendered. I was so captivated by every single character, I just couldn’t move my head away from the stage! This was the first time I almost cried, my eyes could not believe all that creativity pouring out on the stage. The most amazing thing for me? the character design! From sea slugs inspired contortionists, to funny acting-like-a-cat clowns, the program kept bringing so many unique and special characters. And Ohhh, the costume design and make-up were perfection, they had robots, fishermen, fish costumes, and many other things I have no words for as they only exist in that world.
The show was composed of 2 parts and a 25-minute intermission. At this point, we usually go and get a drink and talk, but this intermission was completely different. We got a little ticket that you had to insert into 10 machines that were spread inside and outside the tent. Every time you inserted the ticket, a lightbulb would turn on, signaling that it was recorded that you were there. I tried inserting the ticket a second time, and the machine made this weird noise:
After you found all the machines, you had to go to the biggest one, in the middle of the tent, and see if you won something. We both got a 10% discount at the souvenir shop, which we took advantage of later on. The 25 minutes passed so fast and we had to run back to our seats to watch the second part of the show.
There were 2 parts where I actually cried. First, the most beautiful act, a balloon in the middle of the stage that was projecting what happened at a table. In this table there was a small camera transmitting to the balloon. We could not see the actors in full, only their hands, meaning that the hands were the characters in this act. They moved and danced and inspired me to think outside any other box. The music was so awesome that tons of tears came down to my cheeks. By no means was this a sad act, but it was perfection! The second, and last time I cried, was when one little number changed. The whole time, the show had a clock stuck at 11:11, which caught my attention right away, and I thought it was just a random prop. When the show was over and the characters came to say goodbye, the clock changed to 11:12, and it made me realize it was really over. The magical time I had spent there was gone. Nevertheless, I had previously spotted a DVD in the souvenir shop. I knew I had to get it, cause this could not end there. Reading the program, I found that the reason behind the 11:11 was:
It is a most incredible time, a time of wonder and possibility, full of astonishing inventions, mindboggling feats, and world-changing discoveries. A time of steam locomotives hurtling through underground tunnels, flying machines, gliding on air, iron towers reaching to the sky, it is a time when creative collisions between art and science become matter-of-course. …
The clock shows 11:11. We are in a future past a Thomas-Edison-meets-Jules-Verne retro-future. We are now or never.
I am almost crying again, but maybe I should hold my tears for when I watch the DVD again! I won’t tell you any more details now, cause I don’t want to be a spoiler, but please let me know if you would like to hear more about it or if you would like to read this kind of newsletters!
I will leave you with a couple of snippets of the show:
Until soon friends,
Citla
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