"An immersion into the teeming and energetic world of insects."

What's got acrobats, spider contortionists and trampoline-bouncing grasshoppers? OVO, of course!

This Sunday, I attended Cirque du Soleil's OVO (meaning Egg) in San Francisco with my best friend, my dad, my step-mom, and a family friend. The show was fantastic--and all about insects!

The performers' strength is practically superhuman and the artistic director is an utter genius. The costumes, too, were incredibly creative. Grasshoppers complete with hind legs, spiders with creepy-crawly prickly hair on their arms and lower legs, spiders on stilts, a fly with a cap made of bug-eye designs. But this is all expected at any Cirque du Soleil performance. It goes without saying that the show will be fabulous, over-the-top, and that the performing will be beyond normal human capacity. What I want to share with you is the appreciation I have for the theme they chose for OVO.A spider on his tight rope thread.
The insect theme was a superb idea. The show takes you to a smaller world that we never see, one with a lady bug and a fly falling in love, spiders fending off grasshoppers from their territory, dragonflies balancing on one hand, and grasshoppers jumping up walls and flipping around. The zoom-in-on-life effect was neat if you thought about it, but my favorite part was the response of the audience--specifically the children.

All around us, small children were in awe of what was happening onstage--everyone was, of course. But when the young audience members shouted out what insect was coming onstage, it made me really glad. Hopefully the next time they see an insect, they'll think of the show and get excited to know what insect it is, or to have a connection with the insect that will get them jazzed about nature. Not all of them will, but I would bet there are some kids coming out of that show going "man, insects sure are neat!"
Benoit Fontaine © 2009 Cirque du Soleil Inc.
If you get a chance to see OVO, or any Cirque show, I highly recommend taking the opportunity. The shows are definitely worth it and the caliber of performance and design is something you won't see anywhere else.

Visit the website at http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/ or watch the OVO trailer here.

- Green Gal