Cirque du Soleil premieres Kurios in Malaga

Curiosity is the driving force that makes the world go round. A need to explore the different, which Cirque du Soleil interprets in the form of somersaults, daring feats of balance and impossible contortions.

Two years after Alegría, Cirque du Soleil returns to Malaga with the premiere of Kurios, a show that will run in the big top at the fairgrounds until 5 July.

Kurios has the ability to surprise both Cirque du Soleil newbies and those already familiar with the Canadian company. It's a production with a very distinct identity within the Cirque du Soleil brand.

Its retrofuturistic steampunk aesthetic is striking, transporting the viewer to an alternate 19th century. The music, with cabaret, jazz and vintage sounds that take precedence over the classic epic tone of other productions, reflects the narrative.

There are more objects and contraptions on stage than ever before. The costumes of some of the characters are machines themselves (the belly-house, the train-man, the cloud-people). Two puppets emerge from a giant music box and perform a number with somersaults four metres up in the air. On an immense 340-kilo mechanical hand, four artists create beautiful images with the flexibility of their bodies.

There are tumblers, tightrope walkers, acrobats, contortionists… Everything you'd expect, but in a different way. It plays, for example, with perspective, with the right and wrong sides of things, whether it's an acrobat riding a bicycle or another stacking chairs on a table.

One of the acts is exclusive to this show, the Acronet: a group of gymnasts reinvent the net jump, giving it just the right amount of tension to turn it into a trampoline. The artists themselves regulate the rebound effect with the pressure of their legs, allowing some to reach the top of the big top.

In Kurios, 15 artists perform the classic Banquine, jumping hand in hand, from one to the shoulder of another, crossing paths in the air and creating human pyramids. There's balancing on stacked chairs, a 'rola bola' ten metres high and synchronised acrobatics on straps.

Despite this grandiose performance, Kurios also values subtlety and delicacy. The attention to detail is astonishing in performances like the yo-yo trick or the hand theatre, where an artist can tell a story projected in real time onto a hot air balloon using only their fingers. There's even an invisible circus in a masterful clown act. At Cirque du Soleil, it seems nothing is impossible.

Cirque du Soleil is in Malaga until 5 July. Click here to buy tickets and find out more about Kurios.