Los Angeles Times - Highly Recommended
"...Beyond the buoyant talent, the appeal of this Montreal-based troupe is its lack of pretension. Performers make mistakes and sweat right in front of you, which gives their unvarnished virtuosity all the more impact. (You'll find yourself vowing to go back to yoga and nail that headstand.) Some of the more emotive moments don't land -- it's hard to buy angst in a show with so much physical joy. We discover more about these performers through their physicality rather than their words. A reality show-style elimination announcement near the show's finale makes no real sense either, but it doesn't matter: "Traces" has already left its mark."
LA Weekly - Highly Recommended
"...Though they lack the mega-budget, media splash and spectacular set constructions that are fellow Canadian Cirque du Soleil's hallmarks, this young seven member cast (six men and one woman) entertain with spellbinding precision, energy and panache. The show fuses dance, acrobatics, music, skateboarding, low-brow theater, and even some basketball drills, all masterfully contoured by the troupe's athleticism and assured attitude. And the show possesses an intimacy so lacking in Cirque productions."
LAist - Highly Recommended
"...Traces-playing now at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood-is being billed as a circus. It is and it isn't. There are no clowns or goth fire eaters, but no matter what you call it, Traces is brilliant and fun in its simplicity."
Stage and Cinema - Highly Recommended
"...This is an intimate circus with an inner-city flavor that harks back to the street performances in Montreal, the ones which inspired the original Cirque du Soleil movement. Here, we have an urban update, as performers use skateboarding, basketball and municipal obstacle courses (parcours), along with traditional acts, such as the Diabolo, or Chinese yo-yo."
StageHappenings.com - Highly Recommended
"...It would be almost impossible to single out any of these performers as better than the others since they all end up doing everything. Usually however a single player or couple ends up defining the routine. I was very impressed by Xia Zhengqi who specialized in the Chinese Arts. He is a national acrobatic champion and won the gold medal at the fourth National Acrobatic Competition in China. He is also one of the athletes who have performed in a Cirque Du Soleil show, Dralion."
Examiner - Highly Recommended
"...
Their movements are multiplied periodically with the use of overhead cameras and a projection screen, and their artwork is also projected as they're producing it at a light table downstage. Sometimes they sing. They play the piano and guitar. They tease each other and stage mock fights. And through all this they clearly let you know that they are having one helluva good time!"
TheatreMania - Recommended
"...Traces, now at the Ricardo Montalban Theare, is a free-flowing performance piece that combines modern ballet, acrobatics, silent monologues, and will leave audiences with the word "wow" frozen on their lips."
Musicals In LA - Highly Recommended
"...But Traces is not only a marvel of theatrics. The show also includes large doses of humor, like their happy-go-lucky version of "Paper Moon" on skateboards, and forges a personal connection between the performers and the audience as well. To accomplish that, the artists offer up personal bits of information – name, hometown, adjectives that describe themselves, and other fragmented stories and photos that become the heart of the piece."
