Alegria!

The word alegria means joyful in Spanish, and that is exactly how we left the Cirque du Soleil show on Saturday. What an amazing show! Matt and I are long time Cirque fans, having seen Ka, O, and the Beatles LOVE show between the two of us. We were thrilled when we saw the traveling production of Alegria was coming to Dubai and setting up at the Ibn Battuta mall. Matt secured tickets for their Saturday afternoon performance and off we went.

Wow. Just when you though those New Year’s resolutions to go the gym are paying off, you see the cast of this show! It’s stunning and so demotivating at the same time! Matt and I decided to split caramel popcorn as we watched the perfect human specimens on display. If you can’t join them, then umm…console yourself with popcorn. That’s what I always say. Matt and I decided to challenge the Atkins and South Beach diets of the world and just start marketing the Cirque du Soleil diet.

I think my research would go something like this: “Excuse me sir can you tell me how you keep so fit?” “Why yes, I spent 8 hours a day balancing all my body weight on the three fingers of my left hand while sitting 10 feet off the ground.” “Oh is that all? What a decidedly easy way to build that “core strength”!” Words escape just how amazing and cool these acts are, so lucky for me; I’ve found a number of videos that do the show justice:

I don’t even know what to say about these two. The entire time I watched this all I could think about is ‘what is going on inside?’ Seriously, where does your liver go?

This isn’t your standard Olympic floor routine! This woman ungulates like a snake. How many years of yoga does this take?

Matt tells me that this guy is impressive, but not nearly as good I want to think because he is using “low temperature fire”. Low temperature fire? What does that even mean, how low can you go?

I am not even sure what is more impressive the guys flipping, or the guys catching them? I can guess at who gets the bigger bruises. Those shoulders have to hurt.

They saved their most intense act for the end. It was great, but I couldn’t relax. By the time it was over I was the one sweating!


Ok, so now off to the gym, it's nice to have something to aspire to! (Of course a new Krispy Kreme just opened up next door, ah, choices, choices...)