Cirque de Soliel

One of our neighbors is giving pilates classes to the artists of Cirque de Soliel that is currently in Paris. (I had actually thought that the troop was from France but evidently they are Canadian.) Anyway, she was able to get us complimentary tickets to attend yesterday afternoon's performance of the show called Corteo. We had to take the subway to the end of the line 9, Pont de Sévre, a 45 minute trip and then we walked another 15 minutes. After exiting the subway we were confused as to where to go with nothing but freeway signs evident until we asked three different people how to get to the island where the circus tents were set up. Luckily, there was a stream of people that we followed across a 4 lane street, along a freeway, up a set of stairs, across a pedestrian bridge, through a park and finally to the entrance to the complex of big tops; to say the least it is located in a very difficult-to-reach, out-of-the-way place!

We met our neighbor in front of the box office, got our tickets and went inside to our seats. This was the third Cirque de Soleil performance I have seen and I enjoyed it as much as I had the others. Corteo follows the story of a man dying and getting his angel wings. With lots of acrobatics, fabulous costumes, the right mix of theatrics, traditional circus acts, and artistic creativity, the show was a delight to watch. Unfortunately, fewer than half the seats were filled but understandable with the exorbitantly priced tickets and hard-to-reach location. Too bad because it's a wonderful show.