The Cirque is back in town

Cirque du Soleil is back and with a fantastic new show, ‘Kooza’ (which was reviewed in the July 2 issue of Windy City Times, and which is a critics’ pick this week). Behind all the costumes and masks and bodies flying through the air are just more bodies flying through the air—just not in costume!

At a recent rehearsal for Kooza, Ganjuur BoldBaatar, the captain of the house troupe (the leader when all performers are on stage), remarked, ‘I have been in Cirque du Soleil for four years now and have been in over 300 shows, and we average 2,500 people per show, which means I have performed for over 750,000 people!’ That’s a lot of performances, not to mention rehearsals. Rehearsals happen constantly. When asked about the ‘TeeterBoard’, BoldBaatar replied, ‘We jump 100 times on the ground, and [to] feel each other, we must jump together, and this takes practice, lots of practice.’

Photos by Kat Fitzgerald