KSO Pops joins with Cirque de la Symphonie

A unique collaboration is coming to Knoxville. The internationally acclaimed Cirque de la Symphonie is partnering with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra to create what promises to be a singular performance of physical and musical mastery.

Although there's nothing new about putting feats to music, something happened as the art form of the circus became heightened and honed into its more recent Cirque du Soleil-styled manifestations. In Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's upcoming Pops collaboration with Cirque de la Symphonie, the genre is again retooled into a unique combination of live orchestration and brilliant physical artistry.

Cirque de la Symphonie is the brainchild of its co-founder, executive director and producer Bill Allen. Following years of traveling and working with performers from the Moscow Circus - especially internationally renowned aerialist and co-owner Alexander Streltzov - Allen created Cirque to push the art form even further.

"It's different from the usual symphony," says Allen. "This is going to be unlike anything audiences have seen."

Allen continues, "It's a fusion of live music and movement," and not the usual canned orchestration and automatic rigging of previous shows styled after Cirque du Soleil. "It's a very true collaboration between symphonic organizations and us, a very humbling experience in a collaborative way."

For Streltzov the opportunity to perform with live music and live pullers (the men and women holding and pulling the ropes attached to the aerialists) presents a creative space like nothing else. "Performing to live music is an experience that can't be topped. The symphony flows through you and into the audience. You've got to see it. It's hard to describe," he says.

To borrow from Hollywood: think Houdini meets Leopold or, more recent, LeBron meets Pavarotti.

Steltzov will be joined by an exemplary cast of movement specialists. Jaroslaw Marciniak and Dariusz Wronski, national hand-balancers from Poland and former members of Cirque du Soleil; Aloysia Gavre, an aerial acrobat who won the Special Prize at the International Circus Festival in Monte Carlo; Vladimir Tsarkov, whose juggling earned him the gold medal at the Cirque de Demain International Festival in France; and Elena Tsarkova, a contortionist formerly with the renowned Big Apple Circus, Switzerland's Circus Knie and Germany's Circus Roncalli, should complement well the mastery of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra.

The show performs for one night only, Saturday, May 15, at 8 p.m. at the Civic Auditorium. For ticket info, go to www.knoxvillesymphony.com.

Josh Gildrie is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.

© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
Want to use this article? Click here for options!

© 2010 Knoxville.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.