Cavalia's entrance area. There are eight tents. The big top is immense. It spans over 24,000 square feet. There are 2,004 seats, all of them padded and quite comfortable. Upon entering one must climb to the top of the grandstand and work down to the seat rows. It's a good climb. I'd say that the top row is some 25 to 30 feet off the ground. Steel scaffolding provides the underpinning. All seats are on one side. The performance is in front of all the seats. |
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Cavalia #2
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1 comments:
Wow.. Would love to Cavalia!!
The photos and description are certainly appreciated.
Here is a New York Times review of a similar show named CHIMERE which I was fortunate to see in 1996 in Battery Park.
>>>>
Magical World of Man and Beast
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: September 19, 1996 New York Times
Which of us hasn't been deeply instilled with the circus and Wild West imagery of human beings proudly ''taming'' animals? By training them to perform simple stunts and to execute feats of hard labor, we demonstrate our superiority in the food chain along with a tenuous control over a brutal natural world. Presented under a tent, these man-conquers-beast displays usually represent the glitzy, least common denominator of show business.
But the Zingaro Equestrian Theater Troupe offers a radically different vision of our relationship to other creatures, one that reaches into the furthest recesses of our collective memory and dream life. This acclaimed French company, which made its American debut at the Big Top in Battery Park City on Tuesday evening during a furious thunderstorm, conjures up a mythic, primitive world in which colorfully dressed equestrians spiritually merge with the creatures they dominate.
Watching the show's multinational cast put a stable of steeds through their balletic paces, you are carried back to a storybook world of phantom horsemen, genies and mysterious, dark-eyed women peering through veils. The performers who execute these maneuvers with a graceful solemnity appear to come from all over, from southern Asia to northern Africa. They constitute a nomadic tribe of artist athletes and theatrical conjurers evoking a pre-industrial age when people and animals lived side by side and shared a kind of knowledge that has been all but lost to us.
If the company's acrobatic riders demonstrate a phenomenal horsemanship and physical mastery, their relationship with the animals who serve them is one of loving, mystical communion. At its best, the company elevates circus into a high theatrical art, and it is all done without words. The only sounds are the heady drone of Indian music and an occasional vocal cry.
You may read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/19/arts/magical-world-of-man-and-beast.html?scp=9&sq=Chimere+1996&st=nyt
klsdad
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