Cirque Dreams Holidaze - An Awesome Show!

Fred & I went to see the Cirque Productions show, Cirque Dreams Holidaze, last night at the fabulous Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit last night.  It was a Christmas present to each other.  

I saw a Cirque du Soleil show (which is a separate company from Cirque Productions), Mystere,' at Treasure Island in Las Vegas with my mom in 2003 (it is still playing there).  We enjoyed it a great deal!  

The Fox Theatre is a beautiful theater.  It was built in 1928 by film pioneer William Fox and is one of five Fox Theatres.  The other Fox Theatres are in Atlanta, Brooklyn, San Francisco, and St. Louis.  It was purchased by Mike and Marian Ilitch, the founders of the Little Caesars pizza chain, and owners of the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings professional sports teams.  They completely renovated it in 1988.  It is a spectacular venue in which to see a fabulous show!  

'Holidaze' was, as expected, spectacular!  Cirque shows are a dazzling combination of music, tremendous vocals, and amazing acrobatic and aerial acts.  They are all breathtaking individually and terrific as a whole.  

The Cirque Dreams Holidaze show consists of an international cast.  The countries represented are the United States, the UK, Russia, China, the Ukraine, Maldova, and Uzbekistan.  There is an amazing amalgamation of talent!


A highlight was 'Hold on Tight' featuring Santa Claus and Santa's Helper.  These parts were played by Igor and Andrea Matyushenko, a father and son team from Uzbekistan.  Little Andrea, Santa's Helper, is a tremendous acrobat - and quite a showman at such a young age!


Another highlight was 'Marching on Line,' performed by the Toy Line Soldier, Vitaliy Ostroverkhov from the Ukraine.  He is a graduate of the Odessa Circus Studio, and is amazing on the low wire.  He rode a unicycle while juggling 4 hats which he caught on his head - all while balancing on a wire!  Fred joked that we are unable to clap and sing at the same time!  Too true!


My favorite part were the aerial acts.  In particular, I loved 'Holy Night Flight,' the last performance in the second act.  It was a combination of one of my favorite Christmas song, 'O Holy Night,' and the aerial partners Marque and Rebecca Ohmes from the USA.  I was not expecting a song about the real 'reason for the season,' the birth of Jesus, so I was overwhelmed by the whole experience.  At one point, when the lyrics, 'Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices! O night divine, O night was Christ was born, O night divine, O night, O night Divine' - my favorite part of the song - was sung with crisp beauty by the Angel of Music, Amanda Restivo, with the Ohmes doing their beautiful aerial acrobatics, I thought I was going to burst into tears!'


Fred & I enjoyed the entire evening tremendously.  Being that we both love live performance, we thought we chose a wonderful Christmas gift for each other!  It was a beautiful crisp December evening, and it was a treat to see much a large crowd having such a joyful time in this economically depressed city.

We notice that there is a Cirque du Soleil show, 'Alegria,' coming to the Joe Louis Arena (home of the Detroit Red Wings hockey team) in February 2010.  That would be a great birthday present for me ('hint hint' to Fred!)!