Review: Cirque du Soleil's ECHO creates a sleek, paper-cutout world that contrasts past outings
First new show in Vancouver since pandemic features a parade of surreal white animals and a giant, magical cube
Cirque du Soleil’s ECHO surrounds a giant white cube.
Cirque du Soleil presents ECHO at Concord Pacific Place to January 5
SLEEK ARTISTRY AND innovation take precedence over glitz as Cirque du Soleil unveils its first new show in Vancouver since the pandemic.
For those used to the heyday of productions like Alegría, Corteo, and Quidam, where elaborate sets arched and towered over the audiences, the new Echo—at first—feels positively minimalist, centred as it is around a two-storey-high white cube.
In a testament to both creativity and technology, that cube (the brainchild of British designer Es Devlin) reveals itself as a kind of magic puzzle box, pieces sliding in and out, Jenga-like, to open portals where creatures of all sorts appear, enter the stage, and disappear. Three-dimensional projections dance across its surface, sometimes creating the effect of a massive cracking ice cube, or multiplying the bouncing orange balls of a next-level juggling sequence. Gravity-defying wired performers move upright down its sides in a vertical dance.
But proving less can be more, the most striking aesthetic element is one of ECHO’s most subtle. Masses of performers in white suits wear intricate all-white animal masks—scaley lizards, curly-horned rams, long-necked llamas, floppy-eared elephants—all looking like delicate papier-mâché. Designed by Nicolas Vaudelet, the masks fit in with other diorama-like moments where the sets and projections take on the look of exquisite, layered paper-cutout tableaux—ferns, leaves, and vines in an elegant, canvas-white palette. Sometimes those elements give the acts a stark and surreal beauty, such as the stunning slackwire number performed by two acrobats in white antelope-like head masks (Taras Hoi and Antino Pansa), their tightropes criss-crossing between the four pillars of the opened-up cube as it rotates. At moments, ECHO feels reminiscent of Japanese kirie papercutting installations, or even Crystal Pite’s white-masked Tempest Replica—in other words, a world away from the sequins and spectacle of so much early-oughts Cirque.
In the background, an eerily-antlered ensemble dressed all in black provides live music, for the first time with a group of singers—six in all—giving the show moments of rich harmonic beauty, particularly in the cello-driven slackwire act.
A member of ECHO’s eerily black-antlered music ensemble.
The design team plays colour off the monochromatic background, acrobats bouncing around in costumes of bright prismatic hues.
ECHO explores the contrasts and connections between the natural world of animals and the human. At times there are references to the Tree of Knowledge, at others to the Ice Age and evolution; occasionally it seems to make vague statements about protecting ecology. But mostly ECHO is a dreamlike odyssey, told through Cirque’s usual trope of the journey of an innocent—in this case, the not-so-subtly-named Future and her dog Ewai, decked out in Magritte-like sky prints.
Amid the acrobatic innovation, the first act’s Ethiopian Icarian duo Robel Mezgebe Weldemikael and Meareg Hishe Mehari pull off a mindblowing feat, one laying on his back flipping his partner around like a ragdoll-whirligig on the soles of his frenzied feet. Another number features a pair of aerialists surreally swinging from their ponytails (bringing to mind the hit Barbu show that visited The Cultch earlier this year); in this ouch-inducing “hair-suspension” act, Charlotte O’Sullivan and Penelope Elena Scheidler become mirror images of each other as they bend into sculptural forms, like a living, spinning chandelier. Even the “clowns” (Clément Malin and Caio Sorana) dial back the circus stereotypes; instead, we have two comic acrobats in red bowlers and matching spats, pulling off one of the most audibly gasp-prompting tricks of the night.
The stark sets give the more spectacular moments that much more wonder, including a colourful, mechanical surprise at the end of Act One that is as gigantic as it is eye-popping, and a gorgeously intricate mega-diorama revealing itself in the finale. Sure, there are some filler pieces in between. But design, innovation, and physical artistry take a decidedly contemporary-feeling new emphasis under this big top. Having barely weathered the pandemic, Cirque feels like it’s getting away from the Spandex, gimmicky scaffolding, and clown clichés that once made it the butt of The Simpsons’ parody "Cirque du Purée". It feels surprisingly fresh again as it echoes the creative energy that drove its success in the first place. And for those who are nostalgic for the kitsch and glitter, there’s always Vegas. 
Related Articles
