Cirque Du Soleil is a French-Canadian circus troupe which began in Baie-Saint-Paul, a small town in Canada. There, in the early eighties, a band of street performers called Les chassiers de Baie-Saint-Paul (the Baie-Saint-Paul Stiltwalkers) began to impress the locals through their skills at striding on stilts, juggling, dancing, breathing fire, and playing music. In 1984, Quebec City was celebrating the 450th anniversary of Canada's discovery and they needed a show that would carry the festivities out across the province. Guy Lalibert presented a proposal for a show called Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun) and that is when Cirque du Soleil was born. It found critical international success in the '90s and has gone from strength to strength offering an incredible and diverse range of performance. Indeed by 2003 over 42 million spectators have seen a Cirque du Soleil show !

While Cirque du Soleil may come from a circus background, it uses no animals and has developed its performances to focus on the strength and beauty of the human form. The range of acts are quite astounding and include clowns, comedy, mime, dance, gymnastics, acrobatics, drama and the more traditional acts such as juggling, trapeze, balancing acts, contortionists and more.

Varekai is the gypsy word for 'wherever', and tells a tale of a young man (Icarus) who falls from the sky and parachutes into the shadows of a magical forest at the summit of a volcano. The forest is filled with fantastic creatures, surreal environments and bizarre events. This young man sets off on an adventure both surreal and extraordinary. The performances in Varekai are unusual and profound, at times you roll with laughter at their strange antics yet at other times the performances are quite moving and profound and evoke the spirituality of a Medieval Mystery play or a pagan carnival.

Varekai offers an impressive fusion of drama, music and acrobatics with acts including Aerial Straps, Body Skating, Russian Swings, the Triple Trapeze, Icarian Games, Acrobatic Pas de Deux, and of course, clowns!

VIDEO
Since Varekai is primarily a live performance it is truly impressive to note the clarity and detail in the Anamorphic Widescreen DVD production. The colours are very vibrant with excellent clarity. The filming has been very carefully planned so you get a good balance between overall performance and close up detail shots of the performers and their outfits. This is no mean feat considering the size of the stage and the breath of the performance. There are occasional issues with blurring especially in blues and blacks but these are very minor.

AUDIO
One of the major aspects of any Cirque Du Soleil show is the music. Indeed I would venture to suggest it is as important as the stage set and perhaps even the performers. It has a strong .world music. focus with opera like vocals and a powerful textured sound. There is little to no dialogue.

There are three sound formats, Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 and a very full DTS 5.1 track.
The DTS track is certainly the optimal choice and is quite an intense experience. It makes very good use of all speakers including a very powerful rear speaker presentation. There are some impressive performances with sounds coming from all speakers and creating a very textured and powerful environment.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 is of good quality but certainly lacks the strength and texture of the DD5.1 track. The stereo track is adequate for those who require it.

EXTRAS
The only extras are three acts which can be experienced via multiple angles.
In R1 a 2 DVD set was released packed with extras, we did not get these in R4.