Cirque du Soleil (long blog)

Last night we went to Cirque du Soleil (Quidam) - it was so incredible! Some of the most amazing things we saw were a routine with a wheel, three men standing on top of each other (all standing), and then a fourth man being flipped perfectly to the top of the pile, and this amazing routine with for young Asian girls:



Here's a highlight trailer:



During the first act a clownish man came out of the floor with a rose and two chairs, and went searching through the audience for someone to give the rose to. He looked around and eyed a few older ladies, and then decided to give the rose to ME. He pulled me on stage and I'm thinking "this is not really happening!".

So the act is that the two of us are on a "date". He "checked me out" and brought me around to where the two chairs were, and asked me to sit down. I did, only to be scolded that I walked through the "car door". He had me try again, this time waiting for his to open the imaginary door. He then walked around to his side, and found his door to be locked. I "unlocked" it for him and let him in. :) So then we ride in the car (he instructs me to bounce along with him as we ride on the bumpy road). He honks his horn, and then instructs me to honk it also.

I should point out that from the audience's point of view I was doing all this on my own without instruction. This is why many thought I was a plant (see this article from the Cincinnati Enquirer -- this author also thought that the "date" participant was a plant)!

Here's a short clip BJ snuck of me:



Anyway, back to my "date"... he instructs me to honk the horn and do so... but it breaks and won't stop honking. He gets mad and rips it from the steering wheel. He hands it to me a whispers for me to throw it out the window... in doing so I "break the window" (with a loud crash)... which I didn't know was not open. :) He throws up his hands like I'm crazy and shows me how to roll down a window.

At one point (and I can't exactly remember why), he had my head to the ground and he was tossing and pulling my hair so violently that I thought I might never get it untangled again. From that point on I don't even want to know how crazy my hair must have looked.

Several times (it had to have been like eight times) he would whisper to me, "say no" and then pucker up asking for a kiss. I gratefully did as I was told and said no, and he'd get a sympathetic reaction from the audience. About the time I thought I was being lead back to my seat, he pulled me back again on stage to point out the moon that had been projected on the tent wall. He asked for just a kiss on the cheek, which I did... but of course he quickly turned his head at the last second so I was tricked into planted one on him -- directly on the lips!

During the intermission BJ and I went for a walk, and it was so weird... BJ said it felt like he was walking with a celebrity, because people would point at me, smile at me, and come up to me to say I did a good job. Several people said that they thought I was a plant... and I told them how I had been quietly instructed to do everything I did.

If you get a chance to see the show, I'd highly recommend it!

- Jessie