Last night I was able to attend the premiere of Kooza, the latest Circque du Soleil offering under the yellow and blue striped big top at Atlantic Station.

Walking in and being greeted with flower bearing characters on stilts forces your mind to the place it should be: imagery and imagination and letting go of those pesky grown up thoughts that nag and plague us all.

As we waited for the doors to open so we might take our seats, we wandered about eying (and buying) schwag, opting out of the hours devours being passed by staff dressed in black and masks, and watching the “making of” and snippits from the show being projected on flat screens throughout the climate controlled (bless you, Cirque) tents that form the show compound.

The show itself wasn’t terribly unlike the only other Cirque show I’d been to: Allegria. I was particularly fond of the women who contorted themselves in ways that seemed impossible, but clearly wasn’t. Who should have snapped their spines, but didn’t. The music was different, the story was different, the set and the players were different, but what remained the same was the length the choreographers and performers go to when throwing themselves about on stage for our entertainment…and how well they did it.

At dinner before the show, we were asked twice if we were “going to the circus”. We laughed smugly, because a circus means the stench of elephant dung, droopy cotton candy, and a scary old dude in a top hat. In hindsight, we were wrong. The similarities are there if you’re able to see ’em: to awe the audience, to cause them to gasp, to allow them a place where they can let go of the world and its burdens, and to connect to a quieter more youthful mind. Sure, there were dirty jokes and innuendo that the children (kicking my chair) didn’t get, but the wee ones in my sight all sat on the edges of their chairs, just like I was.

If you have the opportunity to see the show during its run (Jan 2 – March 1), and can find loot in your budget for tickets (anywhere from $38 – 125), I recommend it wit a two wee caveats:
– Don’t bother trying to have dinner at Atlantic Station first unless you make reservations. The wait at Rosa Mexicana was 1hr 20min, and the service at Strip was hideous (there will be a Yelp posting about that, shortly)
– If ya gotta “go”, do it before you walk over. The loos are probably clean, but are those mini-building deals you have to walk up steps to get to that have four stalls per.

Footnote: many thanks to Dave Coustan for the comp tickets that allowed me to begin my new year the way it should: with the arts.