Making a connection
Cirque performers stage passion project at Summerlin Library
I FHarry Chapin performed in the 21st century, “Cat’s in the Cradle” might be the song not of a man too busy with planes to catch and bills to pay, but of a father too engrossed in his phone to look up and talk to his kid.
In a new show created by Cirque du Soleil performers, a father and son struggle to retain an authentic relationship in a world where their devices demand their attention.
Through dance, acrobatics and aerial arts, “Kinekt” tells a story all too familiar to modern families: how to maintain a human connection in the digital age.
Briana Bowie and Noah Bremer, artists from Cirque’s Beatles-inspired show “Love,” first began conceiving their passion project seven months ago. “We wanted to make something creative, outside
CIRQUE
our workplace where we could feature our peers,” Bremer says about codirecting “Kinekt.” Bowie adds, “We had all of these artists and had to figure out ‘what is this show about?’ ”
That answer came by way of artist and pole dance athlete Alberto Del Campo. He performs in “Love”— as does his son Zack, 9, and formerly his son Alex, 11 — but they never perform together.
“Alberto wanted to do an act with his son about spending time with his kids,” Bowie says. The next step was developing that idea into a show. “We thought about what takes us away from our kids or from each other. The answer, in a way, is technology.”
The story follows a father, portrayed by Del Campo, and his son, portrayed at different ages by Alex and Zack. As a young father, he too seldom puts his devices down to play with his son. By the time he realizes how much he missed, his son has grown up to adopt that same habit.
In a pole routine, adapted to a four-post bed for the show, the father fantasizes about how he could have better spent his time. He and his son playfully dance and leap across the bed before the son dives under the covers in a game of hideand-go-seek. The father lifts the blanket to find that his son is not there and it was only a dream.
Another act features a skillful duo twirling on skyhigh straps. As the straps rise to the rafters and lower, the duo intertwines, lifts and even drops each other. “It’s a symbolic routine,” Bowie explains. “They represent the dad and his internal struggle.”
About 20 peers, coworkers and friends take the stage with cyr wheels,