One who cries out, sings and dreams within us all

Quidam: an anonymous passerby, also, the name of the Cirque de Soleil show.

The show is whimsical, haunting, exciting, surreal and breathtakingly beautiful. It also combined a surprising element of playfulness. Overall though, it was dark.

It is a story about a neglected child, Zoe. Her parents fight and ignore her. She is approached by Quidam, a headless man with an umbrella. He leaves her his hat, and she escapes into her imagination full of mystery, haunting beauty and comfort. Here, Cirque de Soleil awes its audience with breathtaking acts, preformed magnificently. The first half of the show was haunting. Everything appears to be dying, alone. Single red balloons fall from the sky. The actors try to cheer up the young girl. The performers work together and get stronger and stronger. The red balloons increase in size, and the feeling is sheer optimism when the young girl gives back the hat and rejoins her newly united family in reality. Quidam stands alone on the stage and offers his hat to the audience, inviting us to dream with him.

The entire performance had me on the edge of my seat. I saw a Cirque de Soleil performance in Minnesota, but I enjoyed this one much more. It was much more... avant-garde in a way. I know I've said "haunting" a lot, but that's the only word I can think of to describe it. The music, as always, was beautiful and live. The performers were perfect. Everything felt like a dream. It was an amazing experience, one I hope to repeat again and again.

Cirque de Soleil described it perfectly : "Quidam highlights our frailties and our anguish in the face of the new millennium that lies before us. It also underlines differences, conveying positive feelings and resentment and confronting our dreams with our nightmares. Quidam is more scripted than previous productions, integrating performance and theatricality to a greater degree, and draws on the emotional relationships between the performers in the troupe."

"Quidam: a nameless passer-by, a solitary figure lingering on a street corner, a person rushing past. One who cries out, sings and dreams within us all."