Cirque du Soleil is known for crafting elegant circus spectacles full of sumptuous visuals, deft acrobatics and wandering clowns. What “Kooza” offers is more visceral, a feast of thrills and chills. In addition to all the clowns, acrobats, silk and high-wire acts, the show features a macabre skeleton dance and the jaw-dropping Wheel of Death.
“It’s our tribute to traditional circus,” says Michael G. Smith, Cirque du Soleil’s senior director of show quality and the show’s former artistic director. “Obviously we don’t use animals, because we never do. But this is pure traditional circus adrenaline.”
Written and originally directed by veteran clown David Shiner, “Kooza” premiered in the company’s native Canada in 2007 and made its U.S. premiere in San Francisco a few months later, then visited San Jose the following year.
Now the show is back in San Francisco for a nearly two-month run, followed by a month in San Jose starting in April. “Kooza” will be Cirque du Soleil’s first big top show in either city since 2019, though its arena show “Corteo” made a quick run through the Bay Area this summer.
“After the pandemic, every show that we decided to bring back, it was an opportunity,” says Smith. “Let’s really look at what works, what doesn’t work, how do we refresh it? And audience’s expectations I don’t think were the same as they were prepandemic. How do we find ways to touch people when I think people are looking more to feel than just to see the amazing impact of the visual? When the show’s running every single day and it doesn’t stop touring, it’s very hard to do those evolutions, because you actually need to stop the show to really do an assessment of how to link all the acts.”
The Wheel of Death is a large rotating beam with two rotating wheels on either side. Two acrobats run inside the wheels like hamsters and do astoundingly perilous tricks atop the exterior of the wheels.
“I worked on the show for a year and a half as an artistic director, and I still cannot watch that act,” Smith says. “I watch the audience reaction, because it scares the (expletive) out of me. It’s absolutely terrifying. ‘Kooza’ will always be an exciting show because of these really high-octane numbers. Which is why the clowns are so important, because the audience need to relax at a certain point.”
The master of the Wheel is Jimmy Ibarra, one of the performers who’s been part of “Kooza” from the beginning. The act seen in the show is Ibarra’s creation, and the equipment for it was built to his specifications.
“What makes it so special is that he flies so high, and he’s kind of suspended in the air,” Smith says. “When he gets on the outside of the wheel and he does those big jumps, I can’t gauge how he’s going to land. It’s just like, how does he not fall off? It’s extraordinary to watch.”
Ibarra did fall off once, he says, way back in 2000.
“I fell from eight meters, and I landed on my head,” he says. “I was two months in the clinic, and I took more than one year to come back at the level I was before. When you have this kind of accident, you have two choices, continue or don’t do it anymore. I almost quit. But I love what I do in my act, and I started training to reduce the risk. And for more than 20 years, I haven’t had a big accident again.”
Ibarra is a third-generation circus artist from Colombia. His grandfather was a clown, his father was both a trapeze artist and a clown, and his mother was a dancer in the circus.
“I was born in the circus,” Ibarra says. “I did some trampoline, some flying trapeze. When I saw the Wheel of Death for the first time in my life, I was 7 or 8 years old. And this guy had an accident that night. I was sitting next to my father, and my father said, ‘I don’t want to you do this act.’ And I said I’m never going to do it. When I was 13 years old, the circus I was working with in Colombia had this act too, and I liked the adrenaline and how it spread to the audience. And I said I want to learn this act.”
“He’s the best there is in the world, so we’re lucky to keep him,” Smith says. “And it’s also the biggest wheel. He calls it his Ferrari, because it’s bigger than they normally are, which makes it even more impressive when you are in an enclosed environment like a big top. You feel the wind as this wheel’s going round. And when they jump on it, you hear it.”
It’s been a long time since the show’s last visit, and people who saw “Kooza” the first time around can expect to be amazed anew.
“When we arrived in San Francisco at that time, we didn’t have the act at the level that we have now,” Ibarra says. “We are more connected with the apparatus, I’m more connected with the partner I work with, we are connected more with the tricks, with the music, with everything. Now you’re going to see a show on another level.”
Contact Sam Hurwitt at [email protected], and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘KOOZA’
Presented by Cirque du Soleil
In San Francisco: Jan. 17-Mar. 10 at Oracle Park, San Francisco; $49-$194
In San Jose: April 18-May 19 at Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, $59-$199
Tickets & more information: www.cirquedusoleil.com
