With storytelling featuring enthralling acrobatics, meticulous set designs and striking costumes, Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia transports audiences to an imaginary Mexico filled with surreal imagery from start to finish, directly inspired by the Central American country.
From Sept. 6 to Oct. 19, audiences will have the opportunity to experience the production’s magic at Lerner Town Square at Tysons for the first time since 2018.
“It’s really a personal story that the writer and director wanted to share and … collaborate with his designers and other people that had this love of the culture and this love of the place and of each other,” Luzia’s artistic director, Gracie Valdez, told The Informer. “It’s a love letter to the country as opposed to [an] advertisement.”
Luzia, which first premiered in 2016, was inspired by creator Daniele Finzi Pasca’s love for Mexico and its culture after traveling and living there for over a decade. The show’s plot follows the adventures of a parachuter through a dreamlike time and place, encountering various characters and locations, including hummingbirds, scuba divers, the jungle and a 1930s-inspired movie theater.
Charlie Wagner, the show’s publicist, has seen Luzia over 100 times and is still left in awe alongside audiences with every performance.
“Yes, it’s a Cirque du Soleil show, but there’s a poetic aspect to [it] that I feel is different from other Cirque shows the way they’ve done it,” Wagner told The Informer while looking at the stage in admiration.
Luzia’s Magic Lies in the Elements
The title Luzia is a combination of the Spanish words “luz” and “lluvia,” meaning “light” and “rain,” respectively. Throughout the show, the main character is guided by both natural agents represented by different props.
In this production, a 22-foot-long 4,000-pound disk inspired by the Aztec Calendar, overlooks the stage and depicts light, acting as both the sun and the moon, made possible by the light box inside.
“I think everything that you will see is inspired by Mexican culture,” Valdez told The Informer. “The size of the disk… for example, is representative of the grandeur of the pyramids. It’s not necessarily literal, but it’s representative.”
Luzia portrays rain by incorporating water into its aerobics, which sets the show as a pioneering production, as no other touring Cirque du Soleil performance has ever done such a thing. The show features a rain curtain, which is executed through a basin under the stage that pumps water to the bridge above the stage. This element is executed with 10,000 liters of water throughout the entire production, the same supply recycled for as long as the show is playing in a specific city.
“One of the main challenges is having a dry stage,” Wagner said.
She explained to The Informer that the stage, containing two rotating rings and a center platter, has tens of thousands of small holes that drain the water back into the 5,000-liter basin it originally came from. The water is disinfected and kept at approximately 102 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure that cast members can easily perform and interact with it. When traveling from the trough to the stage, the water loses about 7 degrees Fahrenheit.
The first time the rain curtain is used is during a desert scene, where the characters onstage are in distress due to the arid setting. When the water comes down, drenching them, the performers are relieved. In other instances, various shapes and images are projected adding even more of an engaging element for the audience.
“If you think about the water and where we use it, it shows up both when you least expect it and when it’s needed in the scenes,” Valdez told The Informer. “You’re able to see the technology, but also see how it will kind of rejuvenate and revive the set itself, and it changes the tableau into something else.”
Soccer, Dance and Culture Collide
One of the scenes that utilizes the rain curtain features two characters juggling a soccer ball with their feet, backs and heads, as a direct ode to Mexico’s most popular sport.
Guinean freestyle soccer player Aboubacar Traore has starred in this portion of the show since its debut.
Traore began playing soccer casually with his brother at 6 years old, passing the ball in their garden. Two years later, he moved to France with his family, where his professional career in the sport began to flourish. The Guinea native went on to play for France’s most popular soccer club, the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (PSG), but his time with the team was cut short after suffering a hip injury in 2008.
Instead of completely giving up his dream and abandoning his love for the sport– called football in other parts of the world— Trarore began practicing freestyle soccer with his brother, learning how to manipulate his body and the ball in ways that required incredible control, dedication and imagination.
“It’s still the same art as football, but you have more freedom,” Traore told The Informer. “You play with all of your body– the head, the feet– and you can spin the ball. You have that freedom of creativity to bring your imagination.”
To keep audiences engaged and maintain the glamour Cirque du Soleil productions are known for, Traore incorporates dancing in his act, taking inspiration from Michael Jackson and his blend of jazz, hip-hop and pop styles. He also enjoys adding breakdancing to his routines, acknowledging that audiences are viewing the show and expecting circus acts, not solely soccer playing.
“I really try to bring that imagination and open it so people know this art as well, because not everyone knows football freestyle,” Traore told The Informer. “Football is a part of Mexican culture. How they love football is like a religion.”
This interpretation of the sport contributes to the surrealism present within Luzia during each scene, adding to the various elements that make the show one of a kind. The production team’s ability to use Mexico as its muse and celebrate the country in such an innovative way makes the show a beautiful experience for audiences of all kinds, whether or not they are familiar with the culture’s intricacies.
“It’s a beautiful escape from reality to come in and, whatever’s happening out there, leave it out there and watch these beautiful humans do what they do best,” Valdez told The Informer. “They’re really amazing.”