I interrupt the Japan Tour programming to bring you a review on “Cavalia“, a Cirque-esque equestrian show, created by one of the original founders of Cirque-du-soleil, now playing in Vancouver. It’s probably about time I did something with the “ ‘n About” part of my blog huh…
Our show was last night and we had the cheapest tickets- the $38 ones with “partially obstructed views”. That’s the view above. It really wasn’t that bad. For reference, my seat was Row N, Seat 62.
What was bad was the additional fees…our total came to $50 each.
And the ushers have to do a better job. When we arrived, we found other people in our seats, and the usher failed to successfully get them out. He had to bring in a security/head-usher person and still he had to “reason” with them.
Seriously. Those weren’t your seats. GET OUT OF THEM!!! And she was a TEACHER there with her group of students geez…nice example you’re setting woman! Sorry. That’s the end of my rant.
So basically Cavalia is a horse show mixed with some acrobatics. Honestly, the first half of the show was pretty boring. It also felt like they needed more practice.
There were quite a bit of mistakes in the first half, from missteps to missed-catches, so it seems like they needed more practice.
As for why it was boring. Well, first of all we didn’t really know what to expect, so we thought there would’ve been more horses involved in the acrobatics.
There weren’t. Most of the time there were just horses running around the stage, then they weren’t even involved in the acrobatics. During the few scenes where they were present, they didn’t “follow” the script which was actually pretty funny.
After a 30 minute intermission. the show got more momentum and much, much better.
There was a segment which showcased the discipline and training of the horses. Eight horses were ridden out and they did a series of formations much like those artsy (dressage) horse shows. It was actually pretty entertaining.
I must point out also that during the show it feels like you’re in the Elven village in “Lord of the Rings” (*sigh~!* oh Legolas~), what with the white horses and flowing long hair of the actors. Just a thought~
Then the show became insanely better. There was a sort of a horse-whisperer part where close to 10 Arabian horses were free to roam around the stage, and the whisperer comes and gets them to do various formations just by gesturing and speaking to them. It was very very cool.
As for the last part. You got to see it for yourself. Pretty entertain, exciting, and cool.
Oh, if you bring kids, be prepared for lots of complaining during the first half.
