Cirque Dreams keeps holiday fun going with ‘Holidaze’ production.
Cirque Dreams show like unwrapping another present
The all-purpose goodwill greeting “Happy Holidays” covers Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s Eve/Day.
Likewise the show “Holidaze” by the Americanbased traveling company Cirque Dreams is also intended to cherish those special days and nights, and light up the season, with larger-than-life sets; 20 scenes; more than 300 imaginative costumes; a cast of 30 circus arts performers from 15 different countries; theatrical talent; and familiar seasonal songs like “Winter Wonderland,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “O Holy Night.”
On Dec. 28, the spectacle — which includes a tribute to Elvis, roller skaters, juggling, slipping and sliding costumed penguins, soaring acrobats, contortionists inside candy canes, toy soldiers, and gravity-defying feats — appears at Reading’s Santander Performing Arts Center.
“There’s an audible gasp when the curtain opens and the audience sees a landscape with toy builders, candy canes and ornaments dangling from a 24foot, steel-framed Christmas tree,” said Broadway director Neil Goldberg, the founder of Cirque Dreams. “There’s lots of eye candy. Just before the end of act one, the stage becomes the largest gingerbread house and cookie.”
Goldberg created the show 11 years ago to fill a void left in the live entertainment destination city of Branson, Mo., when the Radio City Christmas Spectacular was discontinued there. Ignoring industry insiders that said that there was no such thing as a fiveweek, holidays-oriented production that could turn a profit, Goldberg said that he believed in “Holidaze” so much that he funded the inaugural production himself. “I’m a true artist in that nothing I do has been about money,” he said. “It was my vision to recreate a celebration of holiday seasons; a lot of it which comes from my own childhood.”
Today there are five different Cirque Dreams touring companies simultaneously performing the twohour “Holidaze” show each year.
Taking pride in being a circus arts stage spectacular that even the youngest children can enjoy, Goldberg said that four months ago Cirque Dreams officially became the family division of its former competitor, the Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil. “They identified that we have catered to a family demographic that they haven’t been. We share a lot of similarities, and our goals, and how we want to entertain people,” he said.