Amaluna - Full September Moon

Cirque du Soleil's latest show, Amaluna,  plays with your perception of the 'art of the possible', as you watch humans defy gravity and take inconceivable shapes.   Creatures with wings, lizard tails, horsetails.  A moon goddess falling from the sky, lovers' descent into the sea, dreamers climbing to the heavens.  It brings back the wonder of childhood.

Ama refers to mother in many languages, and "luna" means moon, so it is fitting I went to see the show with Alex on the cusp of a full moon.

After this amazing show we wandered the streets of Toronto for Nuit Blanche, through familiar spaces transformed.

The Museum at the End of the World was a disturbing exhibit that clashed with the uplifting vision cast by Cirque.  At New City Hall, Alex and I heard a choir sing soothingly about end times, saw the shell-shocked aftermath of explosions, stumbled across a pile of raw red meat.

Penny joined us and as the evening wore on the streets swelled with crowds.  We made our way to different installations where the line-ups required hours of patience, so we skipped the Ryerson opening of the new Image Centre.  Although we were tempted by the glowing boxes in All Night Convenience, that line-up was a two hour wait.  The crowds got so  thick we were barely able to navigate.

Some  enjoyable highlights were lying on a pillow and gazing up at the ceiling in Old City Hall while a soundscape bounced around in the acoustics; and listening to kirtan in the financial district while one monitor displayed heart and respiration rates and another captured the thermal images of the crowd.

The last installation we went to was the kirtan, a gift of calm to end the night.

An enchanted evening.