'MOYA' by Zip Zap Circus Reviews
Posted on September 24, 2024
Check out select press reviews of ‘MOYA’ by Zip Zap Circus below!
The Minnesota Star Tribune
Review: Children’s Theatre launches new season with spirited South African circus show ‘Moya’
At only an hour, the music-infused performance is packed with talent and energy.
There’s a precise moment in “Moya” when the show captures us with its electric virtuosity.
It happens in the opening minutes as Jacobus Claassen, known as Trompie, portrays a homeless street kid begging for loose change while a live narrator and band set the scene with sincere rhymes.
As Trompie reaches out to strangers for help, two passersby grab his hands in tandem, lift him and flip him in place. Dynamic, quick and thoroughly exhilarating, that flip announces the blithe artistry of a show shot through with tumbling, trapezing and juggling adrenaline.
“Moya” launched the Children’s Theatre Company’s 59th season Saturday. Brisk at just an hour, the power-packed production comes to Minneapolis via South Africa’s Zip Zap Circus, a company that uses circus routines to home and help children in tough circumstances escape and heal.
The show’s name is derived from the Bantu word for “spirit,” and it is certainly infused with vim.
“Thoroughly exhilarating! Packed with talent and energy.”
The Pioneer Press
South African acrobatics troupe spins up an energetic show at Children’s Theatre Company
It’s a show with plenty of variations in pace and mood, the bouncy acrobatics and comical juggling often giving way to meditative aerial feats
Children’s Theatre Company helps make the world smaller for our smallest theatergoers.
In recent seasons, the company has taken to turning its stage over to traveling troupes from other continents, usually presenting pieces that transcend language barriers through pure physicality. It opened last season with the madcap kitchen comedy, “Cookin’,” from South Korea, and has previously launched new seasons with shows from Ethiopian circus troupe Circus Abyssinia.
Now another African import is gracing the CTC stage. Hailing from the southern tip of the continent, Zip Zap Circus is a group from Cape Town, South Africa, founded upon using circus skills as an avenue off the streets for youth dealing with crime, gangs, drugs and homelessness.
You could call the Zip Zap production, “Moya,” a combination of the best aspects of Circus Abyssinia and “Cookin’,” for it features both the eye-popping, gasp-inducing aerial acrobatics of its African stylistic cousin and the kind of comical clowning the Korean troupe brought last season. The result is a very entertaining hour at the theater that should place smiles upon the faces of those of any age.
“One ‘wow’-producing circus act after another.”
BroadwayWorld
Review: ZIP ZAP CIRCUS: MOYA at Children’s Theatre Company
The Children’s Theatre Company has broken their mold of presenting scripted plays and musicals to offer Zip Zap Circus their main stage to present a new type of production to their audience. Enter the mesmerizing world of MOYA.
Filled with an extraordinary blend of dance and circus acts, MOYA tells the true life story of a young man who is down on his luck and through a series chance encounters with performers of Zip Zap Circus’ troupe, begins his own journey to join their ranks.
The beautiful thing about “circus” is that it speaks a universal language. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what your life experiences are, it still can convey a common message. While it may seem easy to throw some circus acts onto a stage and delight audiences, Zip Zap Circus has taken “circus” to a new level. They have brought life and emotion into their story by providing the audience with a central character that allows us to have a shared experience with them as they journey through the show’s many acts.
