Cirque du Soleil is pleased to announce the return of its trademark blue-and-yellow big top in the Greater Los Angeles Area this fall with an all-new awe-inspiring production. Cirque du Soleil - TOTEM, a fascinating acrobatic journey into the evolution of mankind, will be visiting the Port of Los Angeles, Irvine and Santa Monica.
Since its Montreal World Premiere in April 2010, more than 2 million people across Canada, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States have been mesmerized by the TOTEM experience that The San Francisco Chronicle described as "whimsically seductive and the most enjoyable show to come along from Cirque du Soleil in quite awhile" and The New York Times referred to as "What's the next level after impressed? Amazed? Awe-struck? Whatever it is, that emotion arrives often in TOTEM. This is one very sharp show. TOTEM is thrilling". In May 2013, TOTEM won a Drama Desk Award in New York City for Outstanding Unique Theatrical Experience.
Written and directed by world-renown multidisciplinary artist Robert Lepage, TOTEM traces the fascinating journey of the human species from its original amphibian state to its ultimate desire to fly. The characters evolve on a stage evoking a giant turtle, the symbol of origin for many ancient civilizations.
Inspired by many founding myths, TOTEM illustrates, through a visual and acrobatic language, the evolutionary progress of species. Somewhere between science and legend TOTEM explores the ties that bind Man to other species, his dreams and his infinite potential.
Robert Lepage is the director Cirque du Soleil's KA, and Peter Gabriel's Secret World Tour. Immediately following the opening of TOTEM in 2010, Lepage directed the recent Wagner Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. "The Blue Dragon," co-written with Marie Michaud, the sequel to Lepage's "The Dragon's Trilogy" will be performed at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival this September.