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Cirque Du Soleil’s KURIOUS: Best Show Yet On View In Tysons Corner

Some of us — perhaps out of childhood tradition — still make a wish when digital clocks read the same number all the way across.  So while it probably was Michel Laprise’s intention to suggest timelessness as the Cirque clock read 11:11 for almost the duration of the KURIOS: Cabinet of Curiosities performance, I’m sure for most of us in the audience it was a reflection of our “clock” wish that the show never end.  Yes, it was that good.
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Cirque du Soleil returned to the Tysons area last weekend with a its latest touring performance, the 35th production of the troupe since 1984, KURIOUS: Cabinet of Curiosities.
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Cirque’s blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau has come to be synonymous with mesmerizing spectacles and feats of human strength, flexibility, agility, etc.  But KURIOUS has something even more — hearkening back to the early days of traveling showcases of the odd and unbelievable — those cabinets of curiosities that either became circus… or museum.
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In Cirque’s Cabinet, the Seeker is an inventor who creates a machine to reinvent everything around him.  Curios jump to life before him and other central characters that exist to engage our imagination and hone our consideration of how the possible and impossible meet.  Through juggling, contortion, aerial bike, handbalancing on chairs, aeronet, yoyo, cradling, and Rola Bola balancing (a personal favorite!) you’ll lose yourself in a world of the truly fantastical, wondering: Was that real?!  And if you’re like me, you immediately looked up every detail about Mini Lili (Antanina Satsura, the artist who plays her, is 3.2 feet tall and weighs 39 pounds. Yes, she is one of the 10 smallest people in the world!!).
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And then the clock changes to 11:12 and you’re forced back to reality.  But don’t worry, it’s all there waiting for you to see again under the Grand Chapiteau.  KURIOS performs under the Big-Top at Tysons II in Tysons Corner until September 18th, 2016.
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*Images courtesy Cirque Du Soleil, showcasing pre-show audience Opening Performance