Cirque du Soleil’s “Amaluna” in San Pedro

The daring, the graceful, the imaginative

Cirque du Soleil’s “Amaluna” at the waterfront in San Pedro

Cirque du Soleil shows tend to conjure up vague worlds that border on the Tolkienesque and pseudo-mythic, with ample servings of the magical, exotic, and sensual, all of it anchored by a cadre of dancers and gymnasts in colorful, imaginative garb. “Amaluna,” which falls neatly into this category, opened last Thursday at the waterfront in San Pedro, alongside the USS Iowa, where it will remain through May 26.

The title of the show (with “ama” for mother and “luna” for moon) is also the name of a fictitious island, in some Polynesian archipelago judging from the swaying dancers outside the two entrances of the iconic blue-and-yellow big top which accompanies the Montreal-based company’s many traveling shows.

There’s a very abstract storyline, one that’s based on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” However, this isn’t apparent unless someone takes the seat next to yours, leans over, and provides a running commentary. I wasn’t blessed with that, but spectators may glean things along the way or learn more details when all is said and done.

On this island, with its subdued blue-green allure of peacock feathers, there’s Queen Prospera whose daughter Miranda (Anna Ivaseva) has a pet lizard named Cali, presumably after Caliban (Vladimir Pestov), and she’ll eventually fall in love with a shipwrecked sailor named Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin). So far, you’re thinking, this is an all-Russian cast; but let’s keep going.

The Queen Mother whips up a storm and this causes a ship to flounder, with Romeo and his drenched shipmates cast ashore. They crawl out from under a large fishing net. Cirque du Soleil always seems to insert a clown act or two, and this time the honors fall to the portly Mainha, Miranda’s nanny, and the rather frail and sad sack Emmett Kelly-like Papulya, who is Romeo’s manservant.

But the storyline is mere drapery. Until the shipwreck, the island was inhabited solely or at least predominantly by women (tropical Amazons, so to speak), and the cast of the show, comprised of 65 to 70 percent women, has an underlying theme or message of female empowerment. I guess that makes it a feel-good show for daughters, if you have one.

The dozen acts or routines, spread out over both sides of an intermission, range from the synchronized unicycling of Japanese sisters Satomi and Yuki Sakaino to the all-male teeterboard acrobats, the latter routine (or variation thereof) seemingly a Cirque staple but always a crowd-pleaser. This act culminates with a vertical foursome, totem pole-style, one person standing atop the shoulders of another, with a petite young woman balancing cautiously as the human pinnacle. The fellow at the bottom staggers a bit, focused no doubt on the rubdown he’ll get at the end of the night.

“Amaluna” has aerialists and a nicely choreographed female gymnastics act that swings back and forth and over a cluster of uneven bars (we’d call them parallel bars if only they were). But it’s not the daredevil feats that always draw the most applause.

Miranda (that is, Ivaseva) does a hand-balancing act over a large water bowl (weighing 5,500 lbs. when filled). She slips into the glass cauldron, emerges, and repeats the routine again. Apparently much of this has to do with her discovering her impending sexuality, but we’ll just leave it at that. Romeo appears, and so does the jealous lizard-boy, Cali. Romeo, of course, has to show he’s worthy of the maiden, and he does this by shimmying up and down the Chinese pole. The girl’s impressed, and so are we.

However, the stated Balance Goddess is not Miranda, but rather Lara Jacobs of Switzerland. She appears with 13 palm fronds at her feet, and they vary in size from a twig to an oar. One after the other, she picks them up, mostly with one foot, and uses each succeeding frond to balance the others. This is the part where the audience doesn’t even want to breathe, let alone hoot and holler. Impressive, and eerie. It may well be the showstopper of the evening, proving also that the quiet moments can equal the most frenetic. Cirque du Soleil does everything well: They’ve got the magic down to a science.

Nothing I could write can capture the full sensation of “Amaluna,” which was created seven years ago in Montreal, written and directed by Diane Paulus, with a set design by Scott Pask and choreography by Karole Armitage. Guy Dubuc and Marc Lessard wrote the songs, which are played live by an all-female rock band.

Amaluna is being performed through May 26 at the L.A. Waterfront (next to the USS Iowa), 250 S. Harbor Drive, San Pedro. Tickets from $31.50 to $280. Please visit cirquedusoleil.com/amaluna. ER

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