Cirque du Soleil’s CRYSTAL melds acrobatics and ice sports in its final tour, at the Pacific Coliseum to June 8

Multimedia rink show gets its glide on when it mixes surreal imagery with innovative skating and high-flying choreography

By Janet Smith

Images from Cirque du Soleil’s CRYSTAL.

Cirque du Soleil CRYSTAL is at the Pacific Coliseum to June 8

FULL DISCLOSURE: CIRQUE DU SOLEIL’S multimedia rink-based show CRYSTAL, here for a short stint on its final tour, really does feel a bit like Disney on Ice in its opening moments. With a more literal, earnest narrative than the company’s tent-based shows, it launches with a straight-ahead story of a girl—Crystal, of course—who skates to forget feeling like an outcast.

But when the ice “cracks”—thanks to some ingenious overhead projection that’s used inventively through the show—she falls into a surreal, upside-down world that feels much more like the dreamlike universes where Cirque has made its name. In one of the most striking sequences, we see the red-headed title character tumbling down from the upper rafters of the Coliseum, as if we’re watching her plunge to the depths of the icy waters. What follows are rhythmic escapades with neon-clad schoolchildren and armies of briefcase-toting businesspeople, as if the real world has been warped.

In other words, innovative touches and ambitious imagery end up setting the show well apart from other ice spectacles. A live band, including a top-notch fiddler and clarinetist, also differentiates it—though you’ll hear renditions of radio hits (say, Beyoncé’s “Halo”) amid Cirque’s usual original music.

One of CRYSTAL’s strengths is that it pushes its choreography into bold, physically charged territory that is a world away from what you might associate with traditional figure skating. Even when the production goes vertical—most spectacularly in its impressive second half, with hanging straps and stacked chair towers—characters are always floating solo or in formation around the surface of the ice below, creating a constant flow to the show. In fact, the swirling on the ice often echoes the flying in the air. Highlights include acrobats jumping between high-swinging poles, and an achingly beautiful pas de deux in which an acrobat on aerial straps sweeps in to lift Crystal’s skater high off her feet. For young viewers, a standout scene will be the team of hockey players whipping around on ramps and tumbling when they go airborne, at the end of the first act.

Front-row seats allow kids to take part in snowball fights with the clowns, but higher-ups will get a better view of the formations and ice-projection artistry. It lags in spots and may not feature the immersive design extravagance of Cirque’s tent shows, and its icy world feels just a touch off-season—but there’s a poetry to CRYSTAL you usually don’t see at a night at the rink (though Oilers fans might disagree).  

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