If you live in Southern California, you have the good fortune of being able to score tickets to Cavalia’s Odysseo in Orange County. I have wanted to see a Cavalia production for years, and this show did not disappoint!
We’ve been watching the white tent go up for weeks, and I wrote an earlier post with some of the show’s details. The construction of the tent, one of the world’s biggest, next to the 405 freeway was a piece of performance art in and of itself. It’s been building anticipation and the promise of a “spectacle” for weeks now.
Saturday’s premiere show delivered on the promise.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the arena inside the tent. Beforehand I worried about whether we’d be able to see (spoiler alert: there are no bad seats – even the farthest ones have a decent view) and how the seating would be configured. I knew the tent covered the area of a football field, and it was hard to imagine how the audience would be distributed. It’s still hard to explain the answer to this, except to say, the audience is seated in one third of the tent, in tiers, and nobody should need binoculars. Everyone has a great view of the animals and stunning backdrops. If you are in the front row, you might get splashed a little during the second half.
Odysseo started out with a short quiz about the production and their 65 horses. There was less info about the trainers and acrobats, who I’m genuinely curious about now. Where exactly does one place the job announcement for an equine trainer/acrobat? I’m not entirely sure that this whole cast isn’t some magical group of superhumans, here to amuse us muggles.
The show progressed through a series of scenes/stories that feel entirely dreamlike and archetypical. I joked with a friend that my photos looked like something out of a Tarot Card deck. So many of the acts seem like a dream, and almost unbelievable, like the one pictured above – a living carousel, or the one below. In the act below a single woman, using hand motions has a group of (a dozen? I lost count) horses dancing and prancing around her as if she conjured them from the ether.
The acrobatic hanging angels draped in swathes of white fabric were also particularly dreamlike to behold as they arose from horseback.
You can learn a whole lot more about Cavalia’s Odysseo on their website, including show times and ticket prices. Odysseo has extended its stay here in the OC thru mid March. It’s a special opportunity to see something really wonderful and unforgettable!
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