Cirque du Soleil: Immortal World Tour

Julio got 2 tickets for Cirque du Soleil from his Salsa class. These people are amazingly generous... Tickets were sold around 100€. Let me start off by telling you, it was incredible. I haven't seen anything like this before. Cirque du Soleil is supposed to be like that, thus our expectations were rather high and we were not disappointed.

Here are the two of us... Matching colors red and black ^.^ for Michael Jackson... I wore an all black outfit with black Buffalo pumps, a red clutch from H&M and Mac's Russian Red lipstick. Julio wore a red scarf to a black outfit as well...

The Immortal Tour is all about Michael Jackson. And they raised the bar. I'm pretty sure, Michael would have loved what they did. Even some of his musicians went on tour as well. Unlike most Cirque du Soleil events, there was a lot more dancing than acrobatics. I'm scared as hell, whenever I see people hanging on strings under the ceiling doing their tricks... But fortunately, everything went well, no tangling nor falling...

Dancing-wise we were most impressed by the pole dancer Felix Cane. The girl was hanging on her pole, 5 meters above the floor, only supported by her ankles - no hands - doing a split at the pole and rotating around it with her upper body perpendicular to the pole. This is way to artistic to only be shown in strip clubs. Felix is a true artist, she even choreographed the latest Cirque du Soleil: Zumanity, a very sensual show. Here's a link to a YouTube video of her...

Other highlights were the b-boy Jean Sok who only had one leg, the flexible bookworm Baaska Enkhbaatar who turned the pages of an oversize book in the most unbelievable ways, the tango dancers who danced on strings up in the air, changing chairs and women within the blink of an eye, and the contemporary dancers who jumped as if they wanted to dive into the stage but used the momentum to get up from landing flat on their bellies... There were also lots of popping dancers. They were very in sync and even the main character Salah is a famous French popping dancer. He was very clean and stood out :) Also great were the break dancers and tricking people.

The stage was amazing - so huge and all the lights, the curtain, the electronics. A part of the floor could be lifted and turned into monitors, they also changed colors, when Salah stepped on them... Words could not describe how great everything fitted together. They even had indoor fireworks at the end. Very impressive!

So now to the things that weren't as great...

First, I was quite disappointed, I didn't see Les Twins. I was so looking forward to seeing them on stage and then, they quit... Their replacements weren't even half as good but anyway, they wouldn't be on top of the dance community if they could be replaced with anybody, right? Anyway, I think they are too big of a star to be dancing in Cirque du Soleil every day of the year. They have too many projects and I have wondered all along, how they could handle everything. As they seem to be all over YouTube every day...

The locking dances were weak. I can't understand how they put that on stage, if they're so perfect at every other point.

I didn't get why there were singers on stage. The main voice was Michael Jackson. Why the need for anyone else? I couldn't recognize their voices either...

Well, we also saw, it was the end of the tour because the normal dancers weren't really all that excited anymore. They danced well and in sync but not like they wanted to impress everybody. But that's maybe hard to maintain when you dance the same show every day of the year...



But in the end, it was still an amazing show. I haven't seen anything as big in my entire life! Their were a lot of highlights and those were really bright, still impressing us now.

Outfit #10 - Smooth Criminal

Although I'm not a big fan of Carnival, my group had a performance on "Rosenmontag" (In Germany it's on Monday, not Tuesday like Mardi Gras).

We danced to Smooth Criminal from Michael Jackson. Thus, here's my Outfit. It's basically only black and white. The hat is from New Yorker (5 EUR), the white button-up from H&M (15 EUR), the vest from Orsay, the black shirt underneath from New Yorker (~10 EUR), pants from the Dominican Republic, shoes from Deichmann.

The Nailpolish was P2 #650 Fever which used to be P2 #221 Charismatic.

For the Make-Up...
It was more on the heavy side because it was for the stage. Everything as to be so much more dramatic.

Here are the products:

1. Catrice Photo Finish Foundation #050 Deep Bronze on the outside of my face
2. Maybelline Jade - Mati Teint Make-up in Natural Beige - for the inner parts of my face like the T-zone and part of my cheeks
3. Jade - cover stick #24 (green corrects redness)
4. Maybelline - pure. cover mineral concealer #1 (nude beige).
5. Astor - Anti Shine Mattitude Powder (# 005) to set the foundation and concealer.
6. P2 - Bronzer - Sunshine Powder #030 (Bali Heat)
7. Sleek Blush - Scandalous
8. Essence - eyebrow pencil #02 (brown).
9. ELF - mineral eyeshadow primer
10. Essence Ballerina Backstage LE # 01 Dance the Swan Lake - Eye Soufflé
11. Essence Ballerina Backstage LE # 03 Grand-Plié in Black - Eye Soufflé 
12. Essence Eyeshadow #01 Chill Out (Shimmery white) for the inner corners of the eye and as a highlighter underneath the eye brow
13. P2 matte dream Eyeshadow #010 black attitude for the outer corners of the eye (also to set the eyliner later)
14. Astor Eyeshadow #740 Silver to blend 
15. MNY eyeshadow#625 (shimmery dark black) - to darken the outer corner even more
16. Catrice Gel Eyeliner #010 Black Jack with Jack Black to line my upper and lower lash line and doing a little wing
17. Catrice - All Round Mascara Waterproof #010 Blackest Black
18. Essence Lip Liner #08 Red Blush
19. Mac Creamsheen Lipstick - Brave Red

That just got me thinking - I need to buy the Mac Russian Red... Can you believe it? I can't find a Douglas store which sells MAC products.... *grrr*

Thriller Live (Musical)

My boyfriend got two tickets for the Michael Jackson Musical Thriller Live in Mannheim (Rosengarten) from his students, which is a very generous gift considering that one ticket costs 67.50 EUR (about 90 USD).

What we expected
At first, we were a bit afraid that everything would be in German because that's what they usually do in Germany - translate texts and lyrics for musicals like The Lion King, Cats, Dance of the Vampires but fortunately, they didn't. It was all in English.
We were also unsure about the plot, if it was about MJ's life or just a collection of his famous songs, which we of course expected to be played like Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, Man in the Mirror, etc.

What we got
There was no storyline but all the famous songs starting from the times of Jackson 5 to his later albums were played quite chronological (except the songs that were released after MJs death). The band was also on stage, mostly hidden by a huge gate with a big screen - so the music was played live (great band) - the singers also sang live.
The opening was a desaster. The dancing was bad and the singers had flat voices with a couple untuned tones. But the show became better with time.
There were a lot of costumes but they looked cheap. There are better Halloween costumes in the stores than what they got.

The singers
There were five lead singers - one little black boy who sang all the Jackson 5 songs, one female and four male singers. What they did for The Way You Make Me Feel was quite cool - the woman sang it and a whole bunch of guys followed her and were seduced by her confidence. We liked Sean Christopher the best because he had the most similar voice and also the moves and charisma, followed by the little boy who was just too cute. Actually, I think they shouldn't have taken any other singers... Unfortunately, the sound engineer did a really bad job adjusting the sound system for the boy - the high tones were way too loud which made it unpleasant to listen. But other than that I liked the singers.

The dancers

Michael Jackson always had the crème de la crème of everything in his cast - best musicians and best dancers. It used to be every dancer's dream to be on stage with the legendary Michael Jackson. And maybe it's because both my boyfriend and me dance for quite a long time but we thought the dancers were not as good. In general, they had no clue of Locking - and I mean, come on... If you choose this dance, do it great. Anything else is just embarassing.
Especially the ladies were horrible (for this musical at least). They might be better for something with jazzdance but they had no power and no style. Then, a couple breakdancers did some little tricks but oh boy... I don't even know where to start... Anyway, in the end I would say, there was a bunch of amateurs and only one single great dancer (the guy with the mohawk).

Conclusion

It was a nice evening with a lot of great songs but we don't think, it's worth the money. We would never have spent it on this musical. Anyway, there were a couple highlights. The singer Sean Christopher and the dancer with the mohawk were outstanding. If they had more people like them, it could be a great show. And if it wasn't for them, it would be quite devastating.
Looking at the homepage (<< click >>), I can't help but wonder if it was a cheap production. If you go to Cast, there are no unified pictures - colored, black and white, background in all colors. It's not very professional.