Cirque Du Soleil’s Kooza Defies Imagination

Cirque du Soleil's KOOZA Opens In Atlanta Tonight. Digital image. Flickr. Web. 24 Jan. 2010. .

After some preshow, comedy antics, the show begins with a boy trying to fly a grey kite. To his dismay, there is no wind. Instead, the boy lets his imagination take flight as he pretends a creature with a magical wand jumps from a box. With a flick of its wrist, the creature lets loose an entire world of wonders: Kooza.

The stage bursts with activity—loud music fills every nook and cranny as creatures from this alternate universe swarm out into view. And so, the audience enters the Kingdom of Kooza.

The first amazing feat is tightrope walking—on a whole new level. There are two tightropes, one above the other, so that there are always at least two men walking across in either direction. But it isn’t just a duo…there are four men. They jump over each other and land on the rope as if it were as flat as the ground and keep walking. The most amazing trick, however, involves three funambulists, two specially made bicycles, a bar designed to sit on two of the men’s shoulders, and a chair. Two performers ride the bikes with a bar resting on their shoulders. A third funambulist tightrope walks on the bar as the other two ride their bicycles across the wire. If this were not enough, a chair is added to the equation, with the top most performer either sitting or standing on it…while juggling pins. Yes, the audience’s jaws are well past the floor by this point.

Kooza. Digital image. DC Theater Scene. Web. 24 Jan. 2010. .

Sometime after the three female body contortionists, who resembled slinkies as they bent their bodies in the most cringe-inducing ways, are two men and an act that illustrated the phenomenon of freefall (physics geeks unite!). In this performance, an intriguing contraption is lowered to several feet above the stage. It consists of two large circles connected by an intricate weave of metal. One man enters a circle and begins running in it, causing the entire set to rotate. After it gains significant momentum, the second man reaches out, as if it were nothing, and catches onto the second circle—sending himself flying with it. He performs various acrobatic tricks inside and outside the circle; each trick invokes the wildest cheers from the audience.


Another act included a man who balanced on a tower of chairs. He wore what I can only describe as specialized tidy-whities and had his legs completely covered in tattoos. Few dared to cheer in the suspense of every moment as the man balanced on one hand and slowly bent backwards, lowering his legs over his head.

Between nearly every breath taking performance, the clowns got their “funny” on. Surprisingly, many of the jokes were PG 13 and borderline R. One man pretended to molest various audience members while another, the King of Kooza, kept playing with a remote which controlled the show. The group of clowns filled the air with sarcastic jokes that kept the audience roaring with laughter as the other performers prepared.

At the end of the show, the little boy is crowned as the new King of Kooza and given a new, this time colorful, kite. As the boy reluctantly waves goodbye to the creatures of Kooza, he tries flying his kite one more time. This time, the wind picks up and the kite soars.