Odysseo by Cavalia
Under the big top erected east of Fort Road, north of Yellowhead Trail, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Through August 10, 2014
Tickets $25 to $200, at
www.cavalia.net
Review/Reflection by Graham Hicks
It’s very interesting, because the world-famous Cirque du Soleil made its original artistic reputation as the first animal-free circus of any stature.
Odysseo by Cavalia, with its 64 horses, is as culturally, spiritually and technically as connected to Cirque du Soleil as any show could possibly be. In fact, I would bet dollars to donuts that behind the scenes there is an immense amount of interaction between the two organizations, given Cavalia founder and on-going artistic director Normand Letourelle was a partner with Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberte in its earlier years.
And obviously somebody had to finance what was obviously an enormous undertaking when Cavalia was founded in 2003.
Odysseo by Cavalia is not only a spiritual sister to Cirque, it benefits from a common cultural heritage as the founders of both came out of French Canada and embrace that nation-within-a-nation’s artistic soul..
Now this may perhaps be difficult for ultra-practical English Canadians, we westerners at that, to understand: Quebec’s cultural sensibilities are very different to ours, and far more distinct. That cultural orientation, in turn, reflects a European sensibility born of the French language and original ethnic heritage of French Canadians.
It’s about an art form of dreaminess, gently surreal, of soft-spoken folk singers, romantic melodies that contrast with the rollicking fiddles and bonhomie of the couriers de bois.
It’s about spectacle – Montrealers love spectacle and love to be surrounded by artistic spectacle. It wasn’t by chance that grandiose rock band Pink Floyd found its initial mass North American audience in Montreal, or that Rue St. Denis is full of street performers all through the warm weather, or that the annual Montreal Fireworks Festival is one of the best of its kind in the world.
And it’s all these influences that give Odysseo by Cavalia – and Cirque du Soleil – such mega-market appeal.
The creativity and vision of Cavalia and this production overwhelm. Latourelle’s great vision is in understanding how the beauty and rippling rhythms of horses could be the raw creative material for a Cirque du Soleil-inspired sound, sight and light spectacle of magnificent grandeur.
Never before has the challenge of a venue been addressed by such a massive moveable building – a tent one would think inspired by Gaudi’s beautiful Barcelonian church La Sagrada Familia, a tent and stage capable of creating as many enchanting special-effects moments as any Broadway stage and beyond those of an arena-sized rock show.
The beguiling appeal of Odysseo, like that of Cirque du Soleil, is that it deals purely in emotion and images, not overt thoughts. There’s no plot or plot development, no good guys or bad guys … just beautiful scene after beautiful scene, assisted by a state-of-the-art curved scene across the back of the stage for back-drops and settings, plus a very good live band who appeared to enjoy providing the music for the show as much as the performers themselves.
At Odysseo, one abandons oneself to images and emotion expressed through kinetic motion of man and the most beautiful of the beasts. There’s no thought of problems at the office, no mulling over just how much this show would actually cost, no oohing and ahhing over how many horses or actors or the amount of hay at temporary complex at Fort Road and Yellowhead Trail.
Just two hours of visual wonder, abetted by mankind’s love of nature expressed through our relationship with horses.
What’s different about this show compared to the original Cavalia that came to Edmonton in 2012? More than horses, that’s what.
Cavalia was 100% horse and master.
Odysseo is 75% horse and master, 20% a troupe of acrobatic, energetic dancers from the West African country of Guinea and 5% aerial artistry.
At first, the Guinea acrobatics were great fun, especially when intermingled with horse and rider – horses jumping, acrobats doing quazillion backflips at the same time. But the Guinea troupe was on stage too long. Too much of a good thing meant the hyper-acrobatics, going on and on, began to be tiresome.
The aerial artists, on the other hand, were more treasured as they were contained to two or three scenes, and began their exploration of the air from horseback.
The horses and their riders were as exquisite as ever.
It’s true that a country needs hundreds of years of a more-or-less unified civilization to produce its own strong and easily definable culture.
How interesting that Cavalia and Cirque du Soleil are the first fully confident, fully realized, artistic manifestations of at least one of the oldest and more unique regions of Canada … and that both theatre companies have taken the world by storm.
Before I die, I’d like to see a show, just one, of Cavalia and Cirque combined.
That would be something special.