WHEN: Through Sunday
WHERE: Durham Performing Arts Center, 123 Vivian St., Durham
ON THE WEB: www.dpacnc.com
BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN
dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563
DURHAM -- The setting for "Cirque Dreams Illumination" is the bustling activity under a train bridge in New York City, and true to scene, it is a show that is busy with sights, sound and awe.
The stars of the show are, of course, the acrobatic gymnasts whose flips, twists and balancing cause the "oohs" and "ahhs" and continuous applause from the audience. Tuesday night was the opening of the performance run, which continues through Sunday at the Durham Performing Arts Center, but it was also the world premiere of this production. Smaller scale shows have been performed at resorts, but Durham was the first to see it all.
Producer Neil Goldberg had said that the show would be a mix of musical, variety, silent film and Vaudeville like nothing the audience has seen before. The soloist voice of Janine Romano of Trinidad is the only voice heard in the show, aside from a little bit of scene narration. The accompanying music, like the street sounds of New York, is loud and forces the audience to focus on what the acrobats are doing. But if the audience's gaze wanders away from the balancing acts, there is plenty else to see.
Everything is bright and colorful, and the opening scene uses ultraviolet light in a delightful way. There is intricate stationary scenery like the realistic train trestles and graffiti, which, if you're paying attention, will notice says "iLumn8." People-sized traffic cones, with people inside, cross the stage, as does a really cool orange and white traffic barrier with reflector light.
Acrobatic feats include use of the wire, tall stacks of chairs and hanging cubes -- all of which are amazing. But there are a few that stand out as bringing out the most gasps of "wow." One scene features two of the female "Traffic Twisters" in which one gymnast flips again and again and again off the feet of another gymnast. It is accomplished with such speed and precision that it almost doesn't seem possible. All the Traffic Twister cast members are from Mongolia. The rest of the cast hails from countries like Russia, Belarus, Canada, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba as well as a few from the U.S. In another scene, aptly named "Accelerate," perch balancer and aerialist Igor Berstov and Elena Berestova, both of Russia, pull off a feat of balance and spinning that illustrates the "Illumination" title.
The pace of the show keeps up from start to finish, even with a silent movie scene featuring audience volunteers. The scene "director" is Martin Lamberti, from the U.S., who also entertains throughout the show as a vagabond and Vaudevillian. He gets all the laughs.
There's more, of course, that we will leave out to keep the element of surprise for new audiences. They'll be surprised to see what a train conductor can do with a hoop, and how a bathtub is incorporated into another scene. That's a lot of the appeal of "Illumination" -- you don't know what the cast will do until they do it.
