OVO The Performance, P5
In The Audience!
Neither of us can recall a single, actual word being spoken throughout the production of OVO. The performance tells the story of a mysterious bug with a giant egg on his back who stumbles upon a tight-knit bug colony. He loses his egg an spends the rest of the show looking for it and along the way falls in love with a lady bug. In the final skit, he finds the egg, the colony comes together and in the last moment of the show, the egg cracks open and… lights out!
What’s remarkable is that the performers and musicians are able to tell that whole story WITHOUT speaking a single actual word, though there is lot of humming, scatting, and other non-verbal noises to move along the action.
After out back stage afternoon, we had a chance to go back home, eat dinner, change and come back. Our seats were not on the floor, but in the first section right in front of the main stage.
And unlike Corteo, which we saw last year, this performance was light, goofy, colorful and appealed very directly to the many, many kids in attendance.
Every so often, Little Bean would shout, “Those are the shoes we saw,” or “That’s the flower I touched!”
And it occurred to me, suddenly, why these opportunities mean so much to her - because they make the performance, the art, personal. The VIP meet and greets here, or with Plush or The Warning, the chance to meet the artist and talk to them, or interview them like she did with Freeze the Fall, all provide a depth of the experience that makes her feel involvement on a higher level.
Sometimes it’s not easy, or cheap, for me to arrange this stuff for her, but seeing her sitting literally on the edge of her seat watching a professional acrobat whom just hours early was giving her a lesson, perform at the highest level, makes it more relatable, more intimate. She knows his name. She has insight now.
It’s worth it.
In the final number, a bunch of confetti cannons go off and shoot colorful paper butterflies into the air, and once the final bows had taken place, a bunch of kids came down from their seats onto the arena floor to gather up some butterflies to take home. Little Bean filled her purse with them.
Later, after the long walk in the rain back to the car and some late night dinner, she calls me into her bedroom before bedtime. “Look daddy.”
She’s taken the butterflies and covered her closet doors, dozens of them flying this way and that.
“That’s beautiful, baby,” I say.
Art, whether music or words or performance, can change you. Can shift your perspective, your worldview - can make you see things differently, more closely. I want her to not just see art, but experience it, immerse herself in what the human experience can really be about. Will she join the circus? Be a classical pianist? A mural artist? Don’t know, but that’s beside the point.
I just want her to feel deeply. And art does that. So do back bends. And butterflies on a closet door. And eggs
End notes: Many thanks to the crew and guides at Cirque du Soleil who helped set this up for us. This was Part 5. The first 4 parts of our trip are all available in the archives. Thank you to Manchester Ink Link for making Little Bean a Kid Reporter and encouraging her interest. And thank you, dear reader, for coin along on this ride. We have so much planned for the next two months, wait till you see!
As always, if you wish to look over our bookstore, you can click here: Dan and Little Bean’s Bookstore.
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