LOGAN – The acrobats, gymnasts and jugglers of Cirque Mechanics blew into town on Oct. 19 to perform Zephyr: A Whirlwind of Circus at the Ellen Eccles Theatre.
The one-night show was a surprising, thrilling breath of fresh air.
Zephyr was a parable about power, progress and the most reliable of all renewable energy sources – the wind – complete with a working windmill. The show was also a vehicle for its cast to perform nearly unimaginable feats of athletic prowess.
The show is the brainchild of Chris and Aida Lashua, veterans of more than a decade performing with the famed Cirque du Soleil and co-founders of Cirque Mechanics.
Their trademarks are innovative human-powered mechanical apparatus, but it is the relationship between Cirque Mechanics performers and those machines that makes this company unique.
This is Cirque Mechanics’ second appearance in Cache Valley, according to Wendy Hassan, the executive director of the Cache Valley Center for the Performing Arts. Their previous visit in 2015 was to stage Pedal Punk, a circus act set in a bicycle shop.
With their backgrounds in circus tents both here in the United State and overseas, the cast of Zephyr brought an incredibly diverse range of talents to the Eccles Theatre’s stage.
While Tana “Tank” Karo played the embodiment of the wind in Zephyr, her skills also include comedy body puppetry and large-scale illusions. Ms. Karo’s standout contribution to the show here in Logan was foot-juggling umbrellas.
Another gifted juggler, Ozzy Sanchez, appeared as a traveling salesman who leads the show’s mill owner into trouble. Sanchez juggles Indian clubs and hats, as well as providing the motive power for the updated windmill at the show’s climax, while skipping rope about 30 feet in the air.
Zephyr also features Anngela Burt and Jon Dutch, with eight years of experience in performing high-flying acrobatics.
Their combined talents include chair stacking, hand balancing, partner acrobatics, Chinese pole dancing, stilt walking and recently perch poling.
That means that Dutch is holding a pole, while Ms. Burt is up in the theatre’s rafters doing acrobatics.
Dutch also showed off his ample strength, riding a bicycle with one, two and three acrobats balancing on his shoulders.
Other standout members of the cast include Erika Radcliff and Lindsay Covarrubias (both aerialists and hair hangers); Aryn Shelander (a rubber-limbed contortionist); and acrobats Wes Hatfield, Chauncey Kroner and Luke Anderson (all equally skilled at hoop diving).
In addition to their performance on the evening of Oct. 19, the Cirque Mechanics company also staged a matinee for 900 kindergarten students through high school seniors from area schools that afternoon.
Each year, the Cache Valley Center for the Arts brings the best of national and international talent to the Ellen Eccles Theatre as part of the CacheARTS Presents season.
The next attraction in that line-up will be a salute to the 1970s musical careers of the brother-sister duo of Karen and Richard Carpenter by the tribute band “Carpenters Platinum.”
That show is slated for 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 21. Tickets for “Carpenters Platinum” can be obtained online at https://www.cachearts.org/.
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