Dralion

The Cirque Du Soleil has returned home to roost with the reprise of its production of Dralion, much to the delight of legions of local fans. The original touring production of the highly lauded, Oriental-themed show had drawn to a close recently with the expiration of the work visas of the core group of Chinese performers. Montreal, then, has become the testing ground/launching pad for a revamped show featuring a new troupe of acrobats, tumblers, and contortionists from the Far East. That being the case, the May 21st show was deceptively good. A trio of clowns stoked the crowd with their slapstick shtick – they even drew what appeared to be an audience member o­n-stage and proceeded to cajole him to the chuckles of young and old alike. In actuality, the extremely good-natured and agile fellow was, in fact, a member of the troupe…a deception that was punctuated by a series of back-flips later o­n in the show. With the departure of the clowns, the show shifted into full-throttle as wave after wave of performers filled the big-top. The highlights, of which there were numerous, included a sublime trapeze act, a contortionist juggler who actually emerged from, of all things, a mechanized spider, ball-riding tumblers, hoop-diving acrobats, the fluffy/friendly "Dralions" and, of course, the finale which consisted of scores of skip-rope jumping, diving, flipping, whirling dervishes!!! Dralion truly is a thing of beauty from the amazing costumes and set design to the atmospheric music and soaring vocals of the two stellar Cirque vocalists to the incomparable gravity-defying physical feats of the troupe. An awe-inspiring, spell-binding, tour-de-force – catch this magical spectacle while you can!!!