Another Trip Down the Rabbit Hole

To combine the physical flexibility with the mental flexibility, to experience an intimate magic, go to the Cirque du Soleil. There is nothing like it for mystery and inspiration. They create their shows from the ground up, the story, the music, the dance, the costumes, the acrobatics and trapeze, the clowns, all are put together just for the show. They have phenomenal singers and musicians. Everything is shown to you under a tent, no huge arena where you end up watching the whole thing on video anyway.
It is a complete experience, and these videos are just a small taste, nothing like being surrounded by the sound and the costumes, nothing like the trapeze artists soaring above you and the flame's dance of brightness and shadow across the crowd and in your eyes.
Still, they are amazing videos.

Here is the hula hoop act, by the amazingly flexible Elena Lev:




and her father's high bar act:


Both are from the show Alegria.


Then there is the show Quidam,a show about:
"The nameless passerby,the person living lost amidst the crowd in an all-too-anonymous society. It could be anyone, anybody. Someone coming, going, living in our anonymous society. A member of the crowd, one of the silent majority. The one who cries out, sings and dreams within us all. This is the "quidam" that Cirque du Soleil is celebrating.

A young girl fumes; she has already seen everything there is to see, and her world has lost all meaning. Her anger shatters her little world, and she finds herself in the universe of Quidam. She is joined by a joyful companion as well as another character, more mysterious, who will attempt to seduce her with the marvelous, the unsettling, and the terrifying."

Here is the opening of the show "Quidam," plus the German Wheel Act:



From their show "Corteo":




and Varekai: