Cirque du Soleil: OVO on Tour
Talk about creating a buzz. Touring circus company Cirque du Soleil's OVO offers a nonstop, life-affirming, two-hour tribute to the infinitely diverse world of insects. This sensual, acrobatically dazzling show premiered in 2009 as the Montreal-based circus company's 25th production since 1984. The cast for its premiere included 54 performing artists from 16 different countries. Created and directed by Deborah Colker, OVO (Portuguese for "egg") contemplates insects in all their beauty, action and curiosity. Brazilian composer Berna Ceppas transforms their flight, leaps, creeping and crawling into a samba-influenced choreographic spectacle augmented by the constant flutter and hum of real insect sounds.
With well over a thousand performances to date, OVO long ago took flight as one of the Cirque's most popular and rewarding extravaganzas. As Albany, New York's Times Union said of OVO in 2020, "In our digital age, it's reassuring to remember that non-simulated, filter-free entertainment still has the power to dazzle and transport us."
What is Cirque du Soleil: OVO?
Upon its Montreal debut in 2009, OVO became Cirque du Soleil's most audacious and virtuosic new-circus show to date. A trio of principal characters — Master Flipo, Foreigner and Ladybug — keeps this arena spectacular in constant motion, as awestruck insects become intensely interested in a mysterious egg's sudden appearance. OVO teems with life, and Cirque du Soleil's talented cast mirrors the insect world's natural abilities to fly, balance and leap with a lifetime of practice and precision.
During one of the company's largest flying acts, 10 scarab beetles on three platforms toss a single beetle back and forth. A colorfully costumed dragonfly flits about, red ants juggle chunks of kiwi and corncobs with their feet, and butterflies cling gracefully to one another as they float through the air. For OVO's grand finale, the large span used for brilliant lighting effects transforms into a two-story climbing wall onto which trampoline-powered crickets are hurled as though onto a vertical stage. Cockroaches, grasshoppers and other insects serve as supporting characters throughout the evening's dozen acrobatic tours de force.