1. Falling in Love

"You got mind-f***ed by a circus?!", shrieked Yasmin from my Nokia. "But it was beautiful!", I tried to explain. I had passed up a buka puasa get-together with my friends because I had felt like being alone. That was a huge mystery to my friends. I never said no to a social gathering. "Oh fine, are you in love?", demanded Gbum, ever the drama queen.

I was. Deeply. With a circus.


circus . noun . a travelling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns


Yes, I too imagine men in white overalls dragging me to an unnumbered, padded cell, somewhere north of Ipoh. So in love was I, for three whole days I walked the earth in a daze. The last time I spent three days in a daze was....... A really long time ago.

2. A Circus

Not just any circus, the object of my unnatural love, but The Circus. The Cirque Du Soleil.

Five minutes into our introduction, I was swept away, into that wonderland that lovers escape to. Except this was a literal wonderland, set within a blue and yellow big top, pitched on a park in Singapore, in a corner where Beach Street meets Bugis Junction. A wonderland filled with painted clouds, and man-made stars and Tim Burton-esque costumes and characters.

My ex-girlfriend had been bugging me for days, and finally dragged me, kicking and screaming to a day trip in Singapore to watch the Cirque. I didn't want to spend my Saturday watching tigers leaping thru flaming hoops and cotton candy-wigged clowns with red, bulbous noses juggling tri-colored balls. Tigers belong in the jungle and clowns belong in McDonalds with a hundred screaming kids. In circuses, multiply the screaming kids by another hundred. But Barnum & Baileys the Cirque is not. The wild animals in the Cirque are merely hinted at and the clowns don't graduate from the Global University of Clowns. The uniqueness of the Cirque Du Soleil is that it is part play, part pantomime, part musical, part opera, part circus and entirely awe-inspiring.

As we found our way to our seats within the big top, one of the performers was ushering spectators to their seat. A few were sitting at the edge of the stage. One performer, angry face painted on and wearing white boxing gloves was taking long strides in the aisles, oblivious to everyone around him. The lights faded to darkness, someone made an announcement about not taking pictures using cameras with flashes. And then,"Ladies and gentleman, Quidam!"

3. Quidam

A little girl is ignored by her parents. She hears a knock on the door, opens it and is confronted by a headless man with an umbrella. He hands her a hat. Perhaps he has no need for it. She puts on her hat and sits down to daydream. She sings, in French I think, it doesn't matter, her plaintive song transcends all language barriers. The music becomes somewhat mysterious and as it builds up, the sofas in which her parents are in lift off the floor followed by the floor lamp, then the door. The whole living room floats away with her parents in it, unaware. Leaving her in a magical world of wonder and weirdness. And the audience, in awe. I heard a gasp escape my lips, but I'm not sure. The music drowned it out.

I greeted each new scene with my mouth agape. They were played out flawlessly by acrobats, trapeze artists, clowns and dancers of every size and color. I can't remember which scene melted me, was it the one where the entire room floated away? Or the one where her father did his half balletic acrobatics in the air with an angel from the other world? Or the one where a man and a woman, painted like statues, twisted their bodies into impossible sculptures of beauty and strength using each others weight only for leverage. Or the one where a woman did her dance of death suspended fom the ceiling by two lenghts of silk fabric. Or was it the music, performed live, sometimes joyous, sometimes sad, sometimes haunting and mysterious.

I came out of the big top light-headed . It was akin to being hypnotised and not fully recovering. Like I left part of my consciousness in there. According to the Cirque Du Soleil touring schedule, my consciousness is probably in the big top in Hong Kong right now.

4. The Aftermath

Two weeks later I feel like I'm still in Quidam, except the music is coming from my Quidam CD on the car stereo and the visuals are coming from inside my head. A printed little card attached to the back of my Cirque Du Soleil fridge magnet descibes it aptly; Twenty years since its creation the Cirque Du Soleil continues to captivate and inspire millions of dreamers across the world.