Cavalia Odysseo, Somerville MA

We just got home from seeing Odysseo, and man that was one of the most beautiful looking shows I think we've ever gone to. I had heard nothing about it until I heard this WBUR story last week, and told Natalie that this was probably something we should look into. So beyond "It's horses, and acrobatics, and huge", I still knew nothing going in. The show was definitely all of those things.

As with Cirque du Soleil shows, there really are no bad places to see. Despite the size of the tent (Largest ever blah blah, biggest traveling yadda yadda ever), there are still only 2000 seats, so it still feels small and intimate. We were in theoretically the worst possible spot, 3rd row from the top, all the way to one side. You could see everything from up there, and it was all amazing and beautiful.

I could not believe the level of control they had over these horses just with voice commands, or even with no one in sight. They knew exactly where they needed to be and those horses Did Work. The "Horse People" in the audience cued us non-horse people as to what was really over-the-top cool and especially clap-worthy :-)

The integration of the ribbon performers was especially excellent and beautifully choreographed. I do maintain though, "White ribbons, Really? In a horse rink with dirt and mud and whatnot? They'll be filthy!"

Anyway, go. Go see this show, it's really pretty neat, huge, and choreographed. Get the cheapest un-obstructed view tickets you can and you'll be fine.

I know that if we'd put 10 minutes thought into it and brought my mom, she definitely would have been barking in my ear the whole time with "DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO MAKE A HORSE DO THAT!". A lot of that is lost on me as a Not Horse Person, but I knew when I should be amazed. I really feel kind of ashamed that we didn't think of it with her coming for a week like, tomorrow...everything just happened so fast.

Promo video:

And also, this is a thing I saw this week, via JWZ:

(PSA: You might know me to take lots of photos from shows, but hey, assholes, if a venue or performer explicitly says "NO photos, NO video, NO phones", don't take photos. Just enjoy the experience, and maybe /write something down afterwards/. I wish they'd bounced some of the people in the stands taking photos during this thing. As much as I think my stuff would have come out great, there is a matter of safety and annoyance of other audience members. And I'm sure someone on a trapeze must love it when they get flashed in the face by some moron with a cellphone while hanging from one foot 30' off the ground and spinning at like 80rpm or whatever)