For those who have seen the Cirque Musica Holiday Spectacular before, producer Stephen Cook is calling this year’s performance “bigger and better.”
For starters, regardless of the weather outside, it will be snowing in the South Okanagan Events Centre for the performance.
Projectors adding depth to the visuals and more acts joining have helped the show continue to grow with two groups now touring Canada and 35 dates throughout the holiday season. More performers, different music and a more grandiose production are visiting more Canadian cities than ever before.
“Canada has been really good to us so we’re really glad to come back,” Cook said.
“We’ve got a lot of performers from Vegas, from a lot of Cirque du Soliel properties,” Cook, president of TCG Entertainment, said.
Cook’s favourite holiday song coming out of the Cirque Musica performance?
“O Holy Night. It’s really powerful. You have our singer singing a very powerful song, violinists and then an aerialist doing an act and it’s really, really powerful,” Cook said. “It’s really strong. There’s a lot of times you look around and people are in tears. It’s that kind of powerful moment.”
The Senchihina twins, of Cirque du Soliel fame, are bringing their high-flying talents to the South Okanagan Events Centre along with eight generation circus performer and professional hula hoop performer Ashley Winn, John Weiss as well as the Sandow Trio which Cook calls “probably the best Russian bar act in the world.”
The bar act has a four-inch thick bar throwing a performer 20 feet in the air landing back.
The icing on the cake is the local musicians sharing the stage in the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. The Cirque Musica Holiday Spectacular brings local orchestras along for the ride in every city they visit.
“It’s like taking your favourite holiday songs you grew up with, with a live orchestra playing it. Which is great enough, but then you add the cirque element to it where you have the grace, the skill and the danger of the acts these artists do alongside the music,” Cook said. “It really is a neat thing. The goal of it is to bring families together and have a good time with the kids, or a date night or whatever it may be and just get in the holiday spirit.”
For us, that’s the pay off, the kids having fun, the families. The combination of that music and having a live orchestra play it with these acts, it really works when it’s brought together,” Cook said.
Cirque Musica comes to the South Okanagan Events Centre on Dec. 4. Tickets are $75, $55, $45 and children (12 and under) receive $5 off $45 and $55 priced tickets, plus applicable fees. There is a special group rate for groups of 10 or more. Call 250-490-2146 for more details.
Tickets can be purchased in person at the Valley First Box office at the SOEC, by calling 1-877-763-2849 or online at www.ValleyFirstTix.com. For more information, visit: www.CirqueMusica.com