It's not really a circus . . . .

So Coleen and I took a big mess of girls to see OVO, the latest Cirque du Soleil production, and of course we loved every minute of it. It was the best circus ever -- even though there was not a tiger or an elephant to be seen. They didn't even have trained bears or dancing dogs in tutus.

What they did have was every kind of acrobat you could think of -- plus clowning of the French variety. You know the kind of clowning I'm talking about, right? It's a combination of the most glamorous and sophisticated French humor (at least I suppose it was sophisticated -- I couldn't really tell because Cirque du Soleil isn't so much about the dialogue, so all the performers spoke a sort of Frenchified bug-speak. Very elegant.) and the most farcical slapstick comedy -- think Jerry Lewis, but French and urbanely witty.

And oh, have mercy, the acrobats and gymnasts and tumblers and miming! These performers did things that the human body isn't really made to do -- and they all did it so gracefully!

At one point I looked down our row of seats and all of our girl urchins were agog -- their eyes bugged out and their mouths hanging open. I considered taking a picture of those glowing urchin faces in the dark, but then I watched as burly and business-like ushers stormed some poor kid who brought out his cell phone, and I reconsidered the whole idea of flash photography -- but I did stage a re-enactment for you. As you can see, some of the urchins are all about re-enacting, while others think I am a big dork.

We topped off our fabulous evening with a swingin' dinner at the House of Chou -- our favorite Chinese place. I knew the urchins were having a good time when Jolie Blonde's sister the heart-faced girl told a joke having to do with seagulls that was so funny and inexplicable that she laughed so hard she cried into her pu-pu platter.

Check out these Cirque du Soleil swingers!

Image credits:
All performance images and video courtesy of Cirque du Soleil