Cirque Du Soleil - Dralion

Starring: Luan Leilei, Luis Pelegrini Director: David Mallet, Guy Caron Original UK Premiere: 2000 Dvd Release: 28th January, 2002 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

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Cirque du Soleil is an entertainment company founded by Guy Laliberte, a former fire-eater, in 1984 & based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It has several resident & touring troupes & draws heavily from the circus tradition. Emphasizing the use of humans as performers, Cirque du Soleil does not make use of animals. Its performances combine elements of street performances, circus, opera & rock music. Acts include contortionists, jugglers, feats of strength, clowning & trapeze artists. Their costumes are very colorful & creative, setting a festive atmosphere. Celine Dion s A New Day. a resident show in Las Vegas & produced by Franco Dragone, was inspired by Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil has produced a number of IMAX movies, performance DVDs & soundtrack CDs. The troupe was inducted into Canadas Walk of Fame. Las Vegas, Nevada & Orlando, Florida. La Nouba at Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando. Zumanity at New York-New York Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas.

DVD Extras: a number of extra features include a featurette about the five-month deadline the troupe had to meet in putting together the show, splendid for those who thrill to the spectacle of tents being erected & dancers being winched carefully into the rafters of giant hangars. There's also a facility for viewing the performances from different angles. The show is presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, & is generally pristine in both colour & definition.

The work of the Canadian circus troupe Cirque Du Soleil, Dralion is a show which has toured worldwide. It features elements of Chinese circus tradition interspersed with the troupes own pan-cultural sense of stage spectacle. Its a combination of music, dance, clowning & acrobatics lavishly bathed in dry ice, strobe lights & a colourful array of oriental finery, elaborate costumes & props. Here youl find Chinese women finding the strength from somewhere in their tiny bodies to balance by their hands atop 10-foot poles which are wheeled around gracefully; & young boys tumbling rapidly through revolving golden hoops; & bronzed dancers swinging through the air in balletic arcs from lengths of blue ribbon.

What one could do without, though, is the She-Goddess New Age babble throughout the proceedings, as well as the soundtrack, which is a queasy fusion of world music marinated in bass. Theres also an over-indulgence of costume & choreography, presumably the work of the avant garde Cirque Du Soleil, though much here is distinctly apres-garde, reminding the viewer irresistibly of the musical extravaganza that was the daily centrepiece of the ill-fated Millennium Dome. All of this at times smothers & distracts from the impressive physical feats of the Chinese performers. Still, for the three million people who have witnessed this show worldwide this will certainly provide a worthy memento.

David Mallet was a Scottish dramatist. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh & went to London in 1723 to work as a private tutor. There he became friendly with Alexander Pope, James Thomson & other literary figures. William & Margaret, adapted from a traditional ballad. In 1740, he collaborated with Thomson on a masque, Alfred, which was the vehicle for Rule Britannia. His other plays & poetry, popular at the time, are largely forgotten, but he was a significant enough figure to be chosen by Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke as his literary executor. Bolingbrokes writings were edited & published by Mallet in 1754. Posters Of Janet Jackson

Editors Choice: Burn The Floor, David Gilmour, Cats, Cirque Du Soleil, Janet Jackson, Our Favourite Things, Charlotte Church, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, View DVDology

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