entertainment — Blog — Jenn Chan Photography

LUZIA by Cirque du Soleil | “A Waking Dream of Mexico” / October 31, 2019 by Jenn Chan

Photo credit : Matt Beard / Costumes: Giovanna Buzzi / 2016 Cirque du Soleil — Photo credit : Matt Beard / Costumes: Giovanna Buzzi / 2016 *Cirque du Soleil*

When I heard that Cirque du Soleil is coming back to Vancouver for another show this year, I was excited! I always love their show and have made it a point to go see them when they came to Vancouver (since I don’t head off to Vegas often). I’ve always been impressed with the choreography, performance and set designs. Not to mention all the performers’ stamina!! After watching any cirque show, I always tell myself I need to start going to the gym (and somehow never happens …)

A few of my friends had seen the show already this year (their first show was October 3, 2019) and have raved about Luzia! I had to see it for myself, and WOW was it a great show! Every cirque show has its own theme, and LUZIA’s theme is “A Waking Dream of Mexico”. To quote their site, “LUZIA takes you to an imaginary Mexico, like in a waking dream, where light (“luz” in Spanish) quenches the spirit and rain (“lluvia”) soothes the soul. With a surrealistic series of grand visual surprises and breathtaking acrobatic performances, LUZIA cleverly brings to the stage multiple places, faces and sounds of Mexico taken from both tradition and modernity.” They did not disappoint.

LUZIA is a whimsical show with many comical moments. I found myself amazed by the show (of course) but also how seamlessly they were able to transform the stage from act to act - a lot of times without me realizing until the set has already completely changed! The very first set had a large treadmill taking over the whole stage and miraculously, somehow, it was gone! Magic! I found myself trying to keep an eye on the “background set staff” to see if I can spot them changing the sets for the rest of the show, but there were always so much going on to distract you that I could almost never spot them changing up major set pieces.

LUZIA is a very well put together show and you can see just how much preparation it took to put on the performance. There are so many elements and moving parts in the show that I feel like I will find something new in the show every time I rewatch the show! The most notable difference to me, from all the other Cirque shows i had seen in the past, is the water element. I have always wanted to go to Vegas to watch “O” but it has never happened so I was happy to see LUZIA incorporating water into their show. It just added an extra WOW factor to the show, that you don’t often see in other traveling shows. Unfortunately, I think we did not get to watch the “jungle man act” (last photo in this post), but it looks like it would’ve been amazing.

If you haven’t seen LUZIA by Cirque Du Soleil yet, I highly recommend you go check it out! They will be in Vancouver until December 29, 2019. HINT HINT: Christmas is coming and a pair of tickets will make a great gift! ;)

Now… it’s time for me to hit the gym….. (maybe).