Review: OVO by Cirque Du Soleil

OVO Review

A psychedelic dream. This is how it feels like when your brain is mush with the effects of a drug. A large black woman dressed in a lady bug costume. An insect of unknown origin who is carrying a massive egg on its back and then loses it. Multiple and identical Chinese women twirling saucers on their legs and then getting flipped around. A massive wall with bouncing caterpillars. Welcome to OVO.

Brisbane was lucky to host the première season of the Australian tour and last night, all of Brisbane’s high and mighty were present to take in the delight of this show. Since its world premiere in Montreal, Canada in April 2009, OVO has visited more than 15 cities in Canada, United States and Mexico.

The show is artistic, creative and funny. It is what we have come to expect from Cirque Du Soleil with their high production values and the flair for the zany and the creative. The acrobats were all brilliant, and the stage and the setting eclectic. The musical high notes were a perfect complement. Unfortunately, one of the highlights of the show (the flying act) had many mistakes with multiple falls. Clearly the trapeze artists were having a bad day.

It is a perfect family outing. If they would start the show a little earlier than 8:00 PM, it would make for an easier transition for the little ones into the night time. A finish of 11:00 PM was a bit too much for our little kids :(.

In spite of that go see the show. It is worth it.

What?

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL – OVO – 2012/2013 AUSTRALIAN TOUR

Where and When?

Brisbane – From July 14 2012, Northshore Hamilton

Sydney – >From September 13 2012, Showring at The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park

Adelaide – >From December 6 2012, Location to be advised

Melbourne – >From January 17 2013, Melbourne Docklands

Perth – >From April 14 2013, Langley Park

How?

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/ovo/default.aspx

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I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come.

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards.

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

get well soon
happy birthday
thank you
thinking of you
congratulations
anniversary
new home
good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total).

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like.

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered.

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try.

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]

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