Cirque du Soleil: Totem

As you see the familiar blue and yellow of Cirque du Soleil's Grand Chapiteau rise in the distance, you begin to feel your heart race just a little. Whether you've experienced Cirque before or if this is your first time, the promise of Cirque is familiar and it always delivers.

And from the moment you walk into the tent, you slip into another world-the fantastical, unforgettable, inspiring world of Cirque. Their current tour of "Totem," now in Portland, OR, is no exception.

The best way to Cirque is via their VIP Rouge experience. The high end tickets include free parking, a program, bites and sips before the show and at intermission, popcorn during the performance, a private tent (and restrooms) for the pre-show and intermission, a souvenir photo taken pre-show and delivered in a souvenir folder to you mid-show, and, of course, preposterously good seats.

The pre-show fare in the VIP Rouge tent included blue cheese and pistachio encrusted grapes served with a pipette of Chardonnay, baby grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup served in a tiny mug, prime rib sliced to order, miniature mushroom and Brie paninis, pork tarts, caprese salad lollipops, and chicken and waffle bites all served on trays via wandering waitstaff while the champagne, wine and beer flowed freely. At intermission, sweet treats, including chocolate cupcakes, strawberry banana smoothies and sweet waffles with fruit were served.

Cirque du Soleil's Grand Chapiteau is massive. It's thrilling to walk inside and see the stage awaiting you. What looked to be a giant turtle shell filled the stage as we entered the tent. And when the lights went down, a performer came down from the rafters completely covered in glimmering plates like a magical, human disco ball. Suddenly, the shell disappeared and just the "bones" of the shell remained, creating a playground of sorts where performers dressed as lizards and frogs frolicked and played.

The Cirque musicians were tucked behind the reeds far upstage and from the moment they began playing, the audience was transported into an alternate universe. You could tell from the looks on the audience's rapt faces and the sounds of their applause, that they were more than thrilled to be along for what promised to be a very exciting ride.

From the very first note, the music was inventive and melodic and the featured singer, who occasionally appeared center stage complete with regal robes and crown, commanded the tent from every angle with a voice that was hauntingly beautiful.

Dancers styled as Native Americans joined the "animals" at play and then the magical set began to transform. It was the first of many times throughout the evening that that would happen. Through a very inventive raised and arched set piece that had a center component that lifted and lowered and rolled out like a bridge, combined with the use of moving images projected on it, the stage was transformed again and again from water to bubbling lava to the moon's surface and more. It was mesmerizing.

And then the fun really began. "Totem" is a show about our evolving world from the natural, to the scientific, to the limits of outer space. "Totem"" takes audiences in and out and around and back through time and space in a way that surprises and delights. Scene after scene wowed and delighted and thrilled without compromise.

Hunky beach bums in sparkly trunks and a gorgeous woman with abs and arms, the likes of which I have never seen, perform amazing feats on suspended hoops.

Tiny girls on unicycles balanced stacks of bowls on their heads, placing them on their feet and flipping them in the air and catching them on their own heads or tossing them from their toes to the other girls to catch on the waiting stacks on their heads.

A Flamenco dancer, a bullfighter, an Italian tourist, a monkey and an old man in a bow tie walk into the room. And no, that's not the beginning of a joke. It's simply the beginning of more Cirque magic.

An adorable pair of performers in yellow on a swing suspended high above the stage seemed to effortlessly twist and turn and swing and fall as she pouted and they flirted, two would-be lovers testing and trusting and posing and pursuing. If meeting and falling in love were an acrobatic act, this is what it would look like.

The stage becomes a science lab with musicians "playing" beakers and test tubes like instruments while a "scientist" plays with glowing molecules inside a giant inverted funnel.

A beautiful woman dressed in Native American costume is "rowed" in on a canoe as is a handsome man. The two meet on stage, wearing roller skates and perform swings and lifts at top speeds on a small, round raised platform that looks like an oversized drum. And with harnesses around their necks, he spun impossibly fast with her hanging from his neck, centrifugal force straightening her body perpendicular to his. You could feel the audience holding its breath.

Cirque is all of these monumental moments, these grand feats, these incredible visions that are somehow brought to life despite their seeming impossibility. But it's also tiny little moments of magic, flashes of insight and inspiration that make Cirque so grand, each one a snapshot, each one a glimpse into the endlessly creative minds of the Cirque creators.

For an instant, a Neanderthal rock band jams with its monkey groupies and moments later the classic evolution "line-up" of monkey to man comes to life. A powerboat races onto the stage pulling a water skier behind him. Dancers in Native American dress create for themselves wings made of flexible hoops. Space men in helmets take the stage to balance and flip atop flexible poles held by fellow "aliens" as the earth "rises" in the "sky."

What I admire most about the creative team of Cirque du Soleil is the fantastical visions they bring to life, creating and recreating, challenging the limits of the human body, of costuming, of art, of ideas. Performers appear to swim onto the stage. A man wears a hat lit from within. A clown seems to "drain" the sea by "pulling" an outrageously oversized plug.

It's as if they awoke from a dream asking, "I wonder if?" and then simply answered, "Yes." Can the human body bend like that, stretch like that, balance, jump, turn, dance, climb, crawl like that? Yes. Can a costume turn a human into a believable animal, vegetable, or mineral? Yes. Can we make a stage into another world and another and another all within one show? Oh yes.

Cirque is always asking and eloquently answering the creative boundary questions: What else? Where else? How else? Everything Cirque does is ingenious, from how the set moves, to how the props and performers enter and exit the stage, to how the costumes work with the lights and the acts that are being performed, becoming so much more than the fabric and glitter and fringe and beads from which they are made.

Cirque is fantasy made reality; the impossible made possible; the unreal made true. "Totem" is another evening of all things fantastical in the magical realm of Cirque du Soleil. It shouldn't be missed. Of course, it also shouldn't just be seen. It should be experienced. Let yourself into the world of "Totem" and let "Totem" take you away.

"Totem" runs through May 4 at the Portland Expo Center, 2060 North Marine Drive, Portland, OR 97217. For info or tickets, visit https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/totem/tickets/portland.aspx.