Photo by Lawrence Erisson.

TORUK – The First Flight opened last night at Target Center in Minneapolis. The latest show from Cirque du Soleil is a tour de force of visual design paired with elaborate acrobatics, dancing, and magical transformation after magical transformation. It’s also a brilliant showcase of the world from James Cameron’s film AVATAR, shorn of human intrusions.

The plot of TORUK doesn’t matter; there’s nothing that you need to know beforehand, except to show up either decently well-fed or ravenous with enough time to go through the line and grab one of Target Center’s signature large food items. Once you’re seated, though, you’re in for a visual rollercoaster of an experience.

What are these visual stimuli? For starters, TORUK has aerial silks, elaborate costumes, puppetry, and acrobatics. It also has an incredible transforming set that fills the large space, making the interior of Target Center feel strangely but wonderfully intimate. Different windows into the Na’vi world are filled with distinct episodes of music, dancing, and visually lush junglescapes and costumes. This is not an experience for someone who’s easily overstimulated, but most people will do just fine with the intermission break.

The most magical moments of the evening are often not the most elaborate or impressive. It’s moments like walking into the arena and seeing a background starscape, of seeing the glowing Tree of Life slowly emerge, or the first emergence of an elaborate flying beast puppet that take your breath away. Not that you’ll mind the rest – quite the contrary – but within all the pomp and circumstance and elaborate routines there are pieces of transcendent beauty like watching flowers unexpectedly bloom on stage.

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TORUK: The First Flight plays at Target Center in Minneapolis through October 2.

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Basil Considine

Basil Considine was the Editor of the Twin Cities Arts Reader from 2018-2022. He served as Performing Arts Editor and Senior Classical Music and Drama Critic for the Arts Reader's first five years, before succeeding Hanne Appelbaum. He was previously the Resident Classical Music and Drama Critic at the Twin Cities Daily Planet and remains an occasional contributing writer for The Boston Musical Intelligencer and The Chattanoogan. He holds a PhD in Music and Drama from Boston University, an MTS in Sacred Music from the BU School of Theology, and a BA in Music and Theatre from the University of San Diego.

Basil was named one of Musical America's 30 Professionals of the Year in 2017. He was previously the Regional Governor for the National Opera Association's North Central Region and the 2021-2022 U.S. Fulbright Faculty Scholar to Madagascar.

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