They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
--Bob Dylan
By Jonathan Friedman
October 12, 2009 -- Cirque du Soleil announced its arrival in Santa Monica on Friday in the language of the circus. The trademark blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau, or big top, was raised in the pier parking lot with the help of nearly 100 workers.
“In all circuses, that’s where we start,” said Scott Wallace, general manager of KOOZA, the 25th anniversary show Cirque du Soleil will perform in Santa Monica from Oct. 16 to Nov. 29. “That’s when we know the home has been constructed.”
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Each show will conclude with the Teeterboard, which includes acrobats performing incredbile feats in the air.Photo courtesy of OSA Images
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The 66-foot-high Grand Chapiteau is supported by four 80-foot masts. More than 2,500 spectators will fit in the makeshift performance hall, which will feature the world’s top performers in acrobatics and clowning.
KOOZA is being billed as a “return to origins of Cirque du Soliel.” One of the acts in the show will be the Wheel of Death, which features two artists leaping and counter-rotating in a 1,600-pound hamster wheel. Other performances include a contortionist, an artist who balances eight chairs to form a 23-foot tower, a unicycle duo and tightrope walkers.
Each show will conclude with the Teeterboard, which involves flinging artists into the air as they perform quintuple-twisting somersaults and acrobats do the same thing 30 feet in the air with metal stilts strapped to their legs.
“It’s always good to go back to your roots and the things that you like and respond to,” said Wallace about the choice of acts for KOOZA.
Santa Monica is a special place for Cirque du Soleil because without this city the circus might have never survived. Twenty-five years ago when the small act from Quebec made a tour stop in Santa Monica, money was close to drying up.
Unless the Santa Monica performances turned a profit, Cirque du Soleil would have to sell its gear and go home. And that goal was achieved, allowing Cirque du Soleil to go on to become one of the most popular performance shows in the entire world.
“Santa Monica is our historical root in a lot of ways,” Wallace said. “That’s why it was very important to be back by the pier again.”
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Two artists perform as human hamsters in the Wheel of Death.
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This city is unique for Cirque du Soleil because it is the only performance in the United States by the sea. Wallace said this adds to the beauty and specialness of the show.
“And being here in Santa Monica next to Pier, and the history that it has, it makes it extra special for us,” Wallace said.
Cirque du Soleil’s KOOZA performances will take place from Oct. 16 to Nov. 29 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. and on Fridays and Saturdays at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. To purchase tickets, call 1-800-450-1480 or go to www.cirquedusoleil.com.
