"Ovo" or egg as in the beginning of life but in fact.
OVO is a headlong rush into a colourful ecosystem teeming with life, where insects work, eat, crawl, flutter, play, fight and look for love in a non-stop riot of energy and movement. The insects' home is a world of biodiversity and beauty filled with noisy action and moments of quiet emotion.
The show was actually about acrobatic entomology.
OVO explores the colorful and exciting world of insects by bringing to life a wide assortment of bugs - all played by acrobatic circus performers - as they work, eat, crawl, flutter, play, fight and look for love. When a quirky stranger arrives in the bustling community with a mysterious egg, the insects are awestruck and intensely curious about this iconic object that represents the enigma and cycles of their lives.
Featuring a score that mixes Brazilian music and the sounds of real insects, the story is told through a series of circus acts, including foot juggling, trapeze, slackwire stunts, wall climbing, trampoline, gymnastics, contortion, clowning and more.
One of the many things I found engaging was trying to figure out what insect is represented by each costume. The sassy ladybug was a cinch but what is she hugging?
I was thinking it was a blue fly and found out later for sure, got the shinny out of San Francisco.
The setting of Ovo is an underground warren filled with extravagantly costumed bugs -- grasshoppers, ants, spiders, and the like. This loosely-constituted colony has hijacked a large egg from a traveling fly. Naturally he spends most of the performance making futile efforts to win back his prize, falling in love, along the way, for a cute little ladybug, and she for him. Along with the ridiculously pompous leader of the colony, these are the circus's chief clowns.
The contortionist spider gave enough hints. Even before the spider web went up the tarantula hairs on the arms and legs gave her away.
But what is this, a slinky or a caterpillar with appendages?
The most obvious costumes and choreography were the green grasshoppers.
But who are these amazing creatures? I could not tell but there was a whole lot of batting eyelashes.
It was also easy to tell who the ants were and I found them to be the most amazing. They tossed giant kiwis, ears of corn and what looked like tam tams around with feet that articulated better that most hands. In the end with those magic feet, they started tossing each other around while the flying ants never lost control of their spinning tam tams.
I was confused about the firefly. I was certain that golden trapeze artist flying through the air were the fireflies and the performer dancing with the devil was a cricket. But it is verified many places, the trampoline artist were the actual crickets in the show. The man who makes light work of dealing with the devil is a firefly.
And he may have been using those lightning fast hands "tossing up to three diabolos on one string" in the original review but when he got to the Big Apple there were four devils being exorcised to the roof of the big top. |
