Cirque du Soleil with “Kurios” for the first time in Germany – Munich

The boss here in the ring first pushes a calm ball. One thinks. Mister Mikrokosmos has a stomach size like Obelix, but his belly is even more spherical, like an old boiler or submarine hull, it seems to be riveted together from metal plates. The man embodies technical progress – as the fantasist Jules Verne would have imagined it in the age of steam engines.

Mr. Mikrokosmos is the leader of a group of travelers from another dimension, namely the realm of Kuriosistan. “Kurios” is the name of the Cirque du Soleil show, which is now coming to Germany for the first time. The title can be translated as strange, inexplicable or strange, from the English “curious” also as curious or researching, and yet it only marginally hints at what mysterious things this revue has to offer. Namely real surprises, if not miracles. For example, as soon as you get used to all these countless strange creatures that emerge from an accordion section in the ring, a flap in Mr. Mikrokosmos’s bulbous belly opens like a surprise egg and a woman sticks out her head and hat.

We’re not talking about a doll like the ones often used in variety shows. A real person appears here, a real lady, her name is Mini Lili, and she embodies the elegance and poetry of turn-of-the-century Parisian chic in this artistic work of art. Apparently she lives in a pot belly, you can see a wing chair and a whole salon set up in it.

Anyone who is now wondering how this is possible, how the microcosm man can carry all this, has come to the right place in the circus tent that is currently being pitched on Munich’s Theresienwiese and which will become a cabinet of curiosities for a month from the end of January . Such chambers are considered the forerunners of museums. The most powerful and richest once kept a valuable collection in it: artifacts, works of art or klimbim from all over the world, the rarer, more exotic and astonishing, the better. Science and imagination inspired each other here.

Open detailed view

That must have been the case with the author of the show “Kurios”. Michel Laprise (the director of Madonna’s “MDNA” world tour) was inspired by the four poles of the blue and yellow tent (the oldest and largest in the Canadian circus world leader’s inventory). They reminded him of antennas and the 19th century, the golden age of inventions that changed society and the planet even more profoundly than the Internet and AI do today. Giant test tubes (with a hairy seahorse in them), lightning systems, cute robots, a huge turbine (on whose blades a band with electro swing and manouche jazz drives the action), flying machines – everything appears in this futuristic-nostalgic style called steampunk.

Open detailed view

For the new show, Laprise imagined a researcher and his machine that enables travel to other dimensions. There he and the audience meet fantastic creatures (the costumes, by the way, are the most elaborate of all 35 Cirque programs to date): five snake-like creatures in dotted sea cucumber outfits who twist themselves inhumanly, a clairvoyant with a giant brain, and even invisible people who appear ghostly through a “mini -Circus within a circus”, an accordion man who can be very big when extended, but also very small, and therefore at eye level with the little lady.

Mini Lili is played by Rima Hadchiti, at 100 centimeters and 20 kilos she is one of the ten smallest people in the world. Her body, where everything is in proportion, just very small, is so special that a separate medical term was created for her: “Rima syndrome”. She is a celebrity in Australia and has appeared in theater, burlesque shows and Celebrity Big Brother. She always turned down offers from circuses – “because of the stigma attached to people of short stature,” she explains. She first agreed to Cirque du Soleil, precisely because it was “not a freak show”, but rather gave her room for real acting – even if it was the pot belly of Mister Mikrokosmos. “It’s about talent,” she says, “Talent is what keeps real circuses running, not offensive stereotypes.” For her, Cirque du Soleil represents the spearhead of circus evolution.

Open detailed view

In terms of craftsmanship, the 49 artists are already way ahead: a 16-person banquine somersault troupe, a yo-yo juggler, a rola-bola balancer, a sling-trapeze duo, an aerial acrobat on a flying bicycle and many more show never-before-seen numbers, which are magnificently placed in the steampunk scenery (be it the snake woman art on a giant mechanical hand or the enchanting finger theater by the Spaniard Niko Baixas projected onto a giant balloon) or were even developed solely for “Kurios”.

Open detailed view

Michel Laprise not only hired artists who didn’t even know what they were doing, he also specified: “We’re going to do at least three things that at first seem absolutely impossible.” One number resulted from a technical problem on another show. The safety net under the trapeze was hanging too loosely, and so they came up with the idea: What if we make the problem even bigger by simply stretching the net way too tight? Lo and behold: the artists got a real boost. The perfect playing field for trampoline artists like Mathieu Hubener, once a member of the American junior national team. They tried out what was possible with the net that spanned the entire ring and now catapulted themselves under the 20 meter high tent roof in the amazing “Acro-Net” number. They no longer have a safety net. “We look after each other,” explains Hubener. By the way, he’s well-used in “Kurios”; he plays Mister Mikrokosmos in his main role. Because of a quiet ball…

Cirque du Soleil “Kurios”, Fri., January 26th, to Sun., February 25th, Munich, Theresienwiese, www.cirquedusoleil.com