Stretching their body of work to new limits

YOU think you know exactly what our bodies are capable of, and then you go to a show like Cirque du Soleil's Totem. The audience on opening night on Wednesday was treated to approximately 12 acts, each of which defied at least one of the following: gravity, physics, and the limitations of the human body.

Created and written by Robert Lepage, the show started strong with a perfectly synchronised parallel bars performance that left the audience ooh-ing and aah-ing. It only picked up from there. Apart from a few comedic interlude scenes featuring wannabe-Casanova Valentino which were kid-pleasers but fell flat on the humour front now and again, it was easy to see how Cirque has maintained its well-deserved reputation of being the best in the business.

One crowd favourite was a Native American roller-skating duo, who while dressed in all-white with tassels and fringes flying in every direction, twirled around what looked like the base of a tree trunk at unbelievable speeds. Oh, and did we mention they did this while connected by only a neck brace at one point?