La Nouba (1998)

What it contains

• Aerial Silks — Aerial ballet in silk · Aerial ballet in silk — A solo male performer holds sustained aerial poses while four female artists wrap themselves in silk and unwrap through spinning, flipping descents, explicitly called a 'sky high ballet.' Source: "four female artists wrapped themselves in the long column of silk and then unwrapped themselves by spinning and flipping in this sky high ballet"
• Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling) — Breakdancing · Breakdancing act — Three named artists perform routines with spins, flips and tricks that the article describes as straddling dance and acrobatics; this act later took over the slot vacated by jump rope. Source: "performed routines that straddled the line between dance and acrobatics, with spins, flips and other tricks"
• Contortion & Extreme Flexibility Performance · Le Titan (recurring character) — The strongman character confronts other performers on stage while contorting his body into unusual poses throughout the show. Source: "confronts everyone on stage while contorting his body in unusual poses"
• Tumbling for Dance — Power track and trampoline · Power track and trampoline act — Performers execute a large volume of aerial flips and twists off a retractable trampoline/power-track floor built into a three-dimensional building set. Source: "This seven-and-a-half minute act included athletes performing 394 flips and 62 twists."

What is danced

The show is built as a sequence of discrete circus acts framed by a loose story of 'Cirques' (circus people) versus 'Urbains' (urbanites), rather than a through-danced narrative. The clearest dance-adjacent vocabulary is breaking: three named artists performed routines that the article itself frames as sitting between dance and acrobatics, with spins and flips, and breaking ("the B-boys") eventually replaced the jump-rope act in the show's later years. The other strongly dance-inflected sequence is the aerial ballet in silk, in which a solo male aerialist holds sustained poses in the air while four female artists wrap and unwrap themselves in fabric through spinning and flipping descents, explicitly described as a 'sky high ballet.'

Context

La Nouba belongs to Cirque du Soleil's expansion from touring 'big top' shows (Nouvelle Expérience, Alegría) into permanent resident theatres, following Mystère and O in Las Vegas; it was the first such production outside Nevada and the first Cirque theatre to be a freestanding purpose-built structure. Franco Dragone, the director most associated with the company's house style of blending circus discipline with theatrical character work and live scoring, carried over apparatus and staging solutions from earlier productions (the double-track trampoline bed is noted as 'seen in Alegría'), situating La Nouba within a continuous house repertoire of acts rather than a single choreographic authorship.

Staging history

The production ran exclusively at its custom theatre in Downtown Disney/Disney Springs from its premiere on December 23, 1998, to its closing performance on December 31, 2017; it did not tour. Over its run several acts were retired or rotated in and out — high wire, German wheel, chair balancing, juggling and jump rope were each phased out and replaced (by aerial bamboo, jump rope, Anthony Gatto's juggling, rola bola, and breaking, respectively), and the clown pairing changed from Balto and Sergey to the Pablos in 2014. It was succeeded at the same venue by Drawn to Life in 2021.

How to watch it

Watch the aerial ballet in silk for the contrast between the male performer's held strength positions and the women's spinning, unwrapping descents — the apparatus and the choreography are inseparable here. In the breaking sequence, note that the article itself treats the vocabulary as circus-adjacent dance ('straddled the line between dance and acrobatics') rather than pure gymnastics, which is the frame to bring to it. Beyond these two acts, most of the programme (trampoline, trapeze, wheel and balance acts) is disciplined circus skill staged with theatrical character costuming (the Cirques/Urbains colour scheme) rather than danced movement in a technique sense.

Structure

1. Breakdancing
   Three artists perform routines combining dance and acrobatics with spins and flips.
2. Aerial bamboo
   Two artists perform tricks hanging from a bamboo pole suspended from the ceiling.
3. Diabolos
   Four young performers manipulate spinning diabolos, including flips and skipping with the string.
4. Aerial cradle
   A male and female artist take turns supporting one another on a suspended cradle apparatus.
5. Aerial ballet in silk
   A solo male aerialist holds poses aloft while four women wrap and unwrap themselves in silk through spins and flips.
6. Rola bola
   A performer builds a tower of cylinders while balancing and juggling atop it.
7. Flying trapeze
   A synchronized team of aerialists swing between four trapezes on two levels above the stage.
8. Power track and trampoline
   Performers execute flips and twists off trampolines built into a stage set as a building.
9. Cyr wheel
   A backup act for aerial bamboo, not commonly performed.
10. High wire
    Wire walkers cross a 90-foot high wire supported by a half-inch steel cable.

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Questions