TOTEM (Cirque de Soleil)

The first Saturday of the holidays was one that will go down in the book of awesome things we've done. The day started off pretty lazy with some grocery shopping, errands, and chores. That afternoon, I did some marking while Mark worked some on his latest paper both of us trying to distract ourselves until it was time to get ready for our first Cirque de Soleil performance.

This is something that I've really wanted to see for a long time and although they have come to Saint John, we never took advantage of the opportunity. A few weeks ago, we decided that since the performance was within walking distance from our house, we should just do it. We went online and booked our tickets sitting in the second section back from the stage.

Once we arrived to the Big Top, the first thing we both noticed was the Canadian and Quebec flags flying high and proud. Such a little piece of home, but it made us both smile.

After being ushered into the area with all the merchandise, and buying our magnet we entered the big top. From the moment we sat down, the show had already started as many of the comic relief performers were out and about greeting and interacting with the audience. One of our favorite characters was a clown that really took being a clown to heart. He was goofy, silly and adorable. He was eating popcorn (from patrons buckets), ushering people to the wrong seats, and running around trying to get the kids involved in pranks.

Once the show started we were both mesmerized. The talent, strength and entertainment value were all immensely high. The basic story line of Totem was the evolution of man. It went from little jumping and acrobatic frogs that were in such amazing glitter suits to moneys and apes, neanderthals, cave men, first nations, men of the 80's with music and boomboxes, life guards of the 90's and eventually the business man of today complete with ringing cell phone. There was also a scientist (Darwin) in many of the scenes taking notes and observations and conducting experiments with glowing lights and many slight of hand tricks.

The acrobatics was amazing. There were several done on rings, some on beams, there were acrobats flying through the air as well as using many stage props to fly around the set. One of my favorites was a love story that was done on a bar hanging from the air. The strength of the acrobats was amazing and their love story choreography and music was enchanting. It also helped that their suits were a beautiful soft yellow and covered in glitter. There were china women on unicycles throwing bowls onto each others heads, There were also strong men, another duet done on roller blades and so many other acts. In addition to all of these scenes there was also comic relief done by a duet - a clown and a francophone of  Italian decent. They were both silly, exaggerated and so very funny.

If the show heads to north america after it is finished here in New Zealand and Australia, we highly recommend that you see it.