Big Top's Up: Cirque du Soleil at Dodger Stadium

KURIOS leaps into Elysian Park for a multi-week run.

The materials we usually think of when we think of Dodger Stadium are very much of the baseball-inspired sort.

There's wood for the bats, and grass on the diamond, and yarn and cork for the baseballs, and cardboard and paper for the plates and bowls that hold our peanuts and hot dogs and drinks.

But for several weeks brass shall dominate, or at least the notion of brass and what it symbolizes in the steampunk genre. Cirque du Soleil, the famous, out-of-Montreal, mirth-making clown-and-acrobatics troupe, will leap into Elysian Park for several weeks beginning on Thursday, Dec. 10.

"KURIOS: Cabinet of Curiosities" is the name of the outfit's 35th production, a spin on a "Victorian carnival" with a bit of mad science and music-box-y merriment thrown in. That means a whole caboodle of steampunky set pieces, from wind-up clocks to robotic figures boasting accordion-like bodies.

The show will somersault/dance/frolic at Dodger Stadium through Feb. 7, 2016, clearing town just before the bats and balls begin to make their anticipated return.

Let us also mention one more prominent material that's very much a part of the Cirque world: The canvas of its iconic striped tent.

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About 50 people are behind the massive unrolling/hoisting job, a job that includes the placing of over 1,200 pegs and 100-plus poles.

There are indeed a quartet of mondo masts, each at 85 feet in height, with the Big Top reaching 62 feet at its tippy-top points. The tent's breadth is much wider, allowing for some 2,700 seats.

As for the put-up/pack-up times? It "takes 6 days to completely set up and 2 days to tear down," says a representative. Sounds a bit like most any large-scale home project.

Leaps and slides and swings will return to the area come April, when the Dodgers are back in the house, but antics and mystery will lend Elysian Park some enchantment over the holidays, and well into the new year.

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