Cirque du Soleil OVO ready to take the stage

By Lethbridge Herald on May 25, 2022.

Cirque du Soleil will be opening the Canadian tour of its production of OVO Friday night at the Enmax Centre. Cirque du Soleil Photo

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Cirque du Soleil may have the cure for a COVID hangover – its production of OVO which opens its Canadian tour Friday night at the Enmax Centre.

OVO, which means “egg” in Portguese,  is a massive undertaking with 20 semi-trailers hauling all the staging and equipment for the 100 crew members from 25 different countries. Of those, 52 are artists including seven musicians, said senior publicist Janie Mallet on Wednesday during a preview of the show. A couple of performers are former Olympians.

Artists include acrobats, tumblers, contortionists, aerial strap artists, hand balancers and performers on trapeze. And there are lots of clowns who help carry the story and bring comical elements.

Definitely a vibrant, colourful fun show and I think that’s why it works so well with families,” said  Mallet, who tours with the production which performs for 10 weeks then takes a two-week break,

“It’s definitely an uplifting show which I think is what people need at this time. We definitely feel it after stopping for almost two years. Just being back, since we’ve back in the past couple of months, I think both on stage – for us there’s a new appreciation for live entertainment, being able to do what we love to do and share this experience with the public. But I think the audience, they’re also happy to be living this experience…where you can hear the artists breathe. You’re so close you can hear the audience members gasp and laugh. There’s a special connection there that we’re not taking for granted.”

The musicians  will be set up behind the stage watching the performance from behind a mesh screen out of sight of fans with their instruments.

The troupe brings with it six washing machines that are needed to do 36 loads of laundry after each performance, said Mallet.

Also in the crew are four wardrobe techs who are responsible for handling the 1,000 costumes of the perfumers who wear multiple ones during each show.

Costumes are crafted by Cirque in Montreal where each performer undergoes 100 measurements, including 3-D scans, said the publicist.

Everyone does their own makeup – which can take up to 45 minutes – and in a dressing room at the Enmax Centre one cabinet is packed with all the the performers will use during their performances.

Behind the stage, the arena is packed with electronics equipment, boxes line the hallways and each room is filled material required for the show.

Artists even have their own training area with a piece of equipment Mallet calls the “jungle gym.” On this piece, acrobats can prepare for their next segments in the show.

Cirque has been staggering the start of its shows since COVID restrictions ended with OVO being the first Cirque arena touring show to start again. It opened Feb. 11 with a few shows in the U.S. and a residency in downtown Los Angeles at the Microsoft Theatre, said Mallet.

OVO was created in 2009 and it has a Brazilian influence in its music, warmth and colourful insects.

The story focuses on a “blue flyer voyager” comes in with an egg in his back to a colony of bugs and the story centres on him integrating. It also has a love story involving a lady bug, said Mallet.

“The egg is definitely very present. There’s this new egg that everybody is intrigued by. So throughout the show, we have multiple eggs showing up,” said Mallet.

Montreal native Marie-Elaine Mongeau is part of the Canadian contingent and she’s thrilled to be back on stage. 

Montreal has spent 19 years entertaining audiences professionally after leaving the National Circus School in Montreal 

“It’s amazing. It was so emotional when we started. I literally cried on stage when I saw everybody clapping. Mask or no mask it didn’t matter. It was just so nice to give and receive back,” said Mongeau whose partner is also in OVO.

When COVID hit, the two wanted to create a duo using the Russian Cradle  – a form of trapeze where a performer jumps from one trapeze to another, using gravity to make the cradle, according to Cirque’s website – and used the pandemic to “train like crazy and this paid off,” she said.

“We had the best situation out of the pandemic because we were working really hard on a project,” said Mongeau, who along with her partner hit scrapyards to get metal and welded their Russian cradle structure together.

Mongeau’s mom let them live in their basement during the pandemic so they could reduce expenses. And now she’s in the spotlight again, entertaining audiences around the world.

The international touring production will stage five performances here with two each on Saturday and Sunday.

Friday’s show starts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday’s run at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. while Sunday performances are set for 1 and 5 p.m.

Ticket prices are available at the Ticket Centre and are priced at $58-$169 for adults, $48-116 for children 2-12 and $64.50-$118.50 for a family pack.

In addition to Lethbridge, OVO will perform in Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Edmonton. The present leg of the tour will end in Winnipeg this summer after shows in B.C. and Saskatchewan.