In looking back through the blogs, I can’t believe I didn’t write about Romeo and Juliet and Fire, an experience I had a month or two ago that was incredible and worth a story. So, this is not recent, but it was incredible.
I believe this was after a school day, and we had some strange taxi ride to get through to find the bus that would take us out to the venue. It was me and a few other gals, and we were a feeling the end of the day while we waited in traffic in the taxi to get to the bus in time. There was something strange with the bus as well, in that we had to come through the back of the “venue” to get into the performance because there were protesters at the front gate. The start to the whole thing was very strange, and I had little idea what to expect considering I was going on someone else’s ticket instead of having researched on my own.
We made it to the bus, and made it to the venue, and walked through what looked like a carnival graveyard. It was dark and a bit chilly, like a brisk fall night, and we walked through a broad space with pieces of carnival equipment around on the ground. It opened up into an outdoor stage, with a castle feature, no type of ceiling, and bleachers, about the size of a high school football field with seating on all sides.
There was some delaying on stage before the performance started, once we sat down, possibly because of the waiting for big groups to get through the traffic, which was worse than it should have been for the time. There was an emcee who was talking at us in Russian with his fancy suit on, and he brought down some people from the stands to play a game as a distraction. There was also a three-man mariachi band. Why? I’m still unsure, but they played a few nice songs for us.
We walked out to grab a snack or a warm drink in the refreshment area and, of course, the show started while we were there. We had been waiting and thought the wait was eminent, but we were wrong.
It started with fireworks. Tons and tons of fireworks. An explosion of fireworks that brightened up the sky.
And then there were ballet figures, costumed figures dancing around. Some were wearing red, and some blue, and the whole story was told mostly in costume and dance. The start was a group dance, with all the participants, followed by some smaller groups that would dance in the fire, and with the fire, and near the fire.
The Juliet figure was small and petite, and her costume was flowy and lovely. She never danced with fire, but there was a nice part where she and Romeo went off into the balcony scene and the whole set lit up in a beautiful arrangement of lights.
My personal favorite part was the duel between Romeo and Tybalt. Many parts throughout the show involved the fire twirling of big pieces, but the duel was of two different pieces of fire equipment, and it was a dance between the two. One of them had a ball of fire on a chain that was gracefully moved through the air, and it was quite a beautiful use of the tools. Although, they eventually left those two pieces for…. Flamethrowers. In fact, Tybalt was killed with a big blast of the flamethrower. I believe I lost my hold on laughter and possibly made a scene for that.
The whole show was quite short, with no dialogue. In fact, I think the whole thing was just an hour, maybe even less. The whole show was amazing, though, with dance and ballet and aerials, fire in a variety of forms, fireworks. It was a bit chaotic and crazy and absurd and hilarious, but there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t in tears from laughing so hard. In fact, trying to recall specific details is difficult given the night as a whole was so entertaining and enjoyable.
After the show, they invited all the flamethrowers out and the audience had the chance to come up and play with the fire. They let us push the button to see the fire come out, took photos with us, and even taught some basics of the fire spinners. This was… quite the experience. Please enjoy all the photos and videos to get a taste of it.
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