KURIOS - Cabinet of Curiosities

By CC Clark, Freshman, University High School

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT - October 2014

Upon stepping through the grand gates of Circe Du Soleil obscured in a tiny pocket of San Francisco, tucked behind AT&T park, I felt as though I had entered a new world. Crowds gathered, making very little mobility room. Two girls dressed in crazy, silver, shiny attire stood on high stilts, towering above the tiny people. The smell of popcorn was in the air as I stepped into the tent, immense on the inside, like Mary Poppin's magical bag.

At last, I stepped into the performance tent, and nothing, not even seeing the same tent in an entirely different state only three days earlier, could have prepared me for what was awaiting. Though the crowd was still mulling around, attempting to find their seats with the steampunk attired ushers, some performers were already on stage. A man wearing a top hat paced at the tip of the round stage, coming from the wall out into the center of the semicircle audience. Another man, dressed as a mad scientist, with his hair jelled to a point like a unicorn horn, bustled around the scenery that appeared to be his lab, adjusting and noting everything. An enormous bridge made of black rope stretched across the length of the stage, where several audience members received the special privilege to walk across. As the time of the show ticked closer and closer, more and more performers came on stage. Enormous robots, lab assistants, masked helpers. They were open to the audience, a fortune-teller would come and "read minds," and audience members would be invited on stage by the performers. Finally, the lights dimmed and a chill ran down my spine.