Cirque Dreams lights up stage

From double-jointed break dancers to acrobats performing death-defying acts, “Cirque Dreams Illumination” provided a visual feast to a packed house Friday at the IU Auditorium.

Sue Wheeler, a Bloomington resident, came with her friend to see the show after seeing clips of the acts on television. She said her favorite part of the show was the acrobats.

“It was just so dazzling to see them do those kinds of things,” Wheeler said.

Songs, dances and tricks filled the stage with mysticism and fantasy. The show was comprised of 25 short acts, that all built upon one another.

The show began with Janine Ayn Romano, the reporter, singing a ballad about change. As she sang, a visual transformation began to occur within the auditorium.

Acts of break dancing, acrobatics, clowns, dream sequences, a roller coaster reenactment and juggling on drums took place as the narrator guided the audience through the illumination of dreams on stage.

During “The Right to Remain Silent,” the clown director pulled four members out of the audience to perform a silent film. Laughter filled the auditorium as the whistle-blowing silent clown led the audience members to create the dramatic film.

The plot consisted of two lovers gallivanting until the woman’s husband comes home and shoots the other man. The woman mourns his death and kills herself.

The show took a dramatic turn to a serious tone in the aerial water ballet “Drenched.” Two lovers danced together around a bathtub and in the sky.

After the act, the show returned to its previous mysterious tone.

The show finale, “Exhausted,” combined all of the elements of the show into a single dream segment.

“The entire show, I was reminiscing,” Bloomington resident Alice Karp said. “The show reminded me a lot of the variety shows I watched growing up.”

She said she and her husband attend all of the auditorium’s shows.

“I think it’s great that Bloomington has access to such great entertainment,” she said.