Cirque Du Soleil - Delirium is a triumph of sight and sound unrivalled by any performance I've seen, except perhaps by Blue Man Group. While Blue Man group's appeal is primarily the three blue men and the music they create, Delirium is an entire troupe of dancers, acrobats and musicians who multiply the excitement, creativity and awe-inspiring visuals. Delirium is Cirque du Soleil's traveling show, playing arenas and concert halls as it tours the country.

I saw Delirium at the TD Waterhouse in Orlando, the arena that the Magic play in. I have to admit that when I saw my seats on the chart, I wasn't encouraged, though still excited to see the show. I had already seen La Nouba and was very much looking forward to Delirium. I got my 4 tickets through contacts at work, so I couldn't really complain, but when we got to the arena, with the way the stage was set up, there really were no bad seats, except for perhaps the floor, because the stage was set so high. The stage was set up on the basketball court, running lengthwise across the length of the court with entrances on either side enveloped in huge projection screens. During the show, semi-transparent screens are pulled across the stage on both sides and images projected on them, creating some very cool visuals.

The opening act was a woman named Nitza, a tall, willowy woman, who seemed of Latin or perhaps middle-eastern descent. She sang 4 or 5 songs, accompanied by a band made up of a drummer, two percussionists, a bass player and two guitarists, one who played some rather exotic instruments. Aside from a regular electric guitar, he also played a mandolin and what appeared to be a sitar. Nitza was very entertaining and thankfully didn't play too long. After she was done, there was a short intermission.

Delirium is a slightly different show than La Nouba in that the focus is much more on visuals and music than acrobatics, though there is still a good mix of tumbling in the show. There is heavy use of the projection screens, sometimes just a focus on the main performer and sometimes with visuals backing up the piece being performed. Often the visuals were edited live and interspersed with graphics created beforehand. I was very much impressed with how clean and smoothly the show ran. It was a very large production and everything went seemingly according to plan, with only one tiny noticeable error, which hardly took away from the performance. At one point a performer was manipulating about 10 hula hoops around various parts of her body and the man on the stilts who was basically the comedic element in the show missed a hoop that he was supposed to pass to her. It was scooped up very quickly by an unseen ninja stagehand and another hoop immediately passed on.

The theme of the show is similar to the other Cirque du Soliel shows; hope, dreams, desires and the attaining, or at least the pursuit of them. The main character, Cirque's 'everyman' floats in and out of every performance segment, as do the man on the stilts and a thin, manic boy. They appeared to represent certain aspects of 'everyman', devilish cynicism and hope maybe, or at least the crabby cynicism of old age and the joyous buoyancy of youth. Through music and dance, enhanced by the visual imagery projected on the side panels and sometimes in front and behind the stage (which was in the center, so front and back was rather irrelevant), the themes are played out in ever awe-inspiring fashion. My daughter was spellbound and more than once exclaimed about how 'freakin cool' it was. I have to say that I was extremely taken by the whole event, one which I will aways remember as one of the best shows I have ever seen.

The projected visuals were gorgeous and so well done that they simply took your breath away at times. The songs and music were performed live and accompanied by soundtracks, unlike the La Nouba shows which have a live orchestra. The majority of the music was live, however, and very well done. A highlight for me was a pseudo-gang fight performed with drums. Very kinetic and exciting. Being a graphic artist for a living, I found the visuals to be very creative and was extremely impressed with the quality of the imagery a number of times, even shouting about how 'freakin cool' they were myself a couple of times. The finale was almost an anti-climax after the intensity of some of the performances.

Overall, even with the high ticket price, I highly recommend Cirque du Soleil - Delirium. I don't know if I would have seen the show if I had to pay for the tickets, being a poor single dad, but if you have the means, or even if you can barely scrape the cost of a ticket, I recommend seeing this show. Considering how much big name shows like Elton and Madonna are going for, this is a bargain. I found it to be better than La Nouba, and that's a very high mark.

Recommended: Yes