There’s a scene in Cavalia’s Odysseo when costumed handlers and horses take to the stage with not a bridal, harness or saddle in sight.
There’s also no physical contact made between horse and human as they walk the stage, yet the communication between the two is obvious. Call it telepathy, call it training, call it what you like, but the bond between animal and man is palpable.
It’s just one of the goose-bump-inducing scenes that makes up Odysseo, considered the world’s largest touring production, that this season brings together 70 horses and 45 artists in a spectacular journey during which they discover some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes. The show includes what’s known as a “liberty act,” because the purebred Arabian horses are directed only by the soft murmurs of their trainer and a “caravan act,” which comprises too many humans and horses to count.
Cavalia founder and artistic director Normand Latourelle brings together equestrian arts, acrobatics and high-tech theatrical effects for this larger-than-life show. In celebration of this country’s 150th birthday, Cavalia is interrupting its U.S. tour to launch a multi-city Canadian run with Odysseo starting in Vancouver, Jan. 31.
Odysseo’s theatrical effects are as spectacular as they are numerous and include a state-of-the art projection screen three times the size of the world’s largest, a life-size merry-go-round built for the show, a three-storey mountain for dazzling perspectives and a lake made up of 40,000 gallons of recycled water, which magically appears for a splashing finale.
Fittingly, the entire show takes place under the Big Top, a white tent standing 124-feet tall, which in Vancouver will be located on Olympic Village grounds under the Cambie Street Bridge. It’s there, horses and handlers will transport their audiences to the desert and savanna of Africa, the American Southwest, the Northern Lights, an ice cave and Easter Island without them ever leaving their seats. The Odysseo White Big Top is more than twice as large as the one created for Cavalia’s original production.
For more information and tickets, visit cavalia.net or call 1-866-999-8111. Special VIP tickets include premium seats, a buffet dinner and an exclusive visit to the stables after the show. Odysseo runs until Feb. 19.
@sthomas10
