On Sunday we had our first evening out since April. We went to see Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai. We’ve seen, I believe, all their shows that have come to London, and generally buy tickets for each one as soon as as they become available (about a year in advance).
The show wasn’t bad, but I felt it was not up to their usual standard. It was not as innovative as I had expected. Are they running out of ideas, getting stale? Or is it just me, getting used to their thing? In any case it wasn’t quite worth the money I thought (given how horrendously expensive the tickets are, plus the expense of 5 hours of babysitting).
Nevertheless a good show. As usual, a Cirque du Soleil show has to be seen as a whole rather than separate parts. The costumes, music, the acts themselves, etc all have an overarching theme and a coherent feeling. The costumes in particular were fabulous, impressive enough on their own and then even more impressive when you stop to think that the artists can move freely in them without destroying the costumes.
You can’t go wrong with skilled acrobats and tumblers, and two of the strongest acts of this show were acrobatic. One was a tumbling act: two men reclining on their back, spinning their partners with their feet. (Youtube video – you can skip the first 2:30 of the clip which is just general prancing around.) The other one was a Russian swings act – acrobats launched from swings high into the air where they turn and tumble, and then impossibly land on each others’ shoulders, or gracefully “land” high up on a large canvas nets stretched out behind them. (Youtube video.) In both acts the feats that the acrobats perform become gradually more and more impressive until I sat there with my mouth open and could hardly believe the things I was seeing.
At the other extreme of the scale were some totally boring swirlers (marketed as a Georgian dance) and an almost-as-boring hand-balancing contortionist doing nothing new. The swirling dancers were so boring I don’t understand why they were even included in the show. If someone turns up at a circus with swirling as their only skill, you wouldn’t generally expect them to be hired!
My favourite act was an aerial one – two men hanging from wrist straps, swinging high and wide across the scene, sometimes together, sometimes apart. When they first appeared, in tight low-cut black leather, my first thought was, “how much did they pay them to wear those costumes?”. But the act itself was beautiful, well-coreographed and very expressive. Refreshingly, they were not aiming for a pretty result (which is where most aerial acrobatics end up sooner or later) – it was angular and sharp, full of heels and elbows. Very fittingly the performers are two brothers (Andrew and Kevin Atherton). (Youtube video.)
Hi!
How did Ingrid like being with the babysitter? Was it someone she knew before? Have you left her before with anyone (not counting the creche, of course)?
Cheers,
Triin
This was the second time we left her with a babysitter. It was one of the girls from the nursery actually, which was very good – Ingrid knows her well and that was important to us.
She slept most of the time we were gone. The babysitter had a very easy evening of work – just sit in the sofa and read… And Ingrid was tired that evening so she fell asleep early, meaning I could put her to bed myself. She woke up a short while before we got back and didn’t seem distressed at all about finding the babysitter there instead of us. All in all, very successful. If we can get someone from the nursery to babysit for us again, we’ll probably try this again.