BMX and Blue-Topped Bro-Tagonist Command Stage in Cirque du Soleil's VOLTA at Atlantic Station

During media night for VOLTA -- Cirque du Soleil's latest big top showcase visiting Atlanta -- the stage action kept prompting memories of my ninth birthday.

That year brought resolution to a long-sought upgrade from red "kid" Schwinn to a more rugged, Huffy-style bike with knobby tires.

When we reenacted scenes from "CHiPs" or "The Dukes of Hazzard" riding in the neighborhood, I just knew my fourth-grade air time was epic, even though most of my jumps were more like Napoleon Dynamite's.

Packed with freestyle BMX tricks and other extreme moves, VOLTA left me thinking "Tony Hawk meets the Sun Circus." 

And thanks to some sweet hooks in the show's excellent soundtrack -- masterfully composed by M83's Anthony Gonzalez and performed live -- a guitar-riff ear worm brought to mind a slight nod to Cirque's fellow-Canadian artist, Avril LaVigne, and some of the strings in her hit "Sk8er Boi."

To be clear, VOLTA does not include skateboarding.

The production does, however, showcase more amazing BMX moves than I could count, and elements of at least two other Olympic sports: trampoline and gymnastics (specifically, rings). 

I asked the tour publicist whether VOLTA features Olympians (it doesn't), and learned the production includes a six-time Artistic Skating World Champion of senior women's solo skating (as close to Olympic-level as a roller skater can get). 

VOLTA also features many elements traditional to a Cirque du Soleil experience: modern dance, juggling and jumping, and vivid costumes -- in this case by three-time Emmy Award winning designer Zaldy. A clown-like character for comic relief, and many high-flying or gravity-defying elements each get their due. Only a high wire act seemed noticeably absent in this production, but VOLTA is grounded in other strengths.  

It took me longer than in other tours to catch on to the story line, which goes something like this:

The performance opens on the set of a game show with a live studio audience greeted by an aptly-named, gold-sequined host "Mr. Wow." 

His contestant du jour is a blue-topped sportsman crowned with feathers (about 1,500 hundred of them), and the show's press kit outlines the dilemma for VOLTA's pro-, er, bro-tagonist. 

WAZ is a game show contestant who lost touch with himself. He's ashamed of who is is because of his difference, and he enters the show in search of fame, thinking this will bring him love and acceptance. 

What he finds is something else -- fame is not the answer -- and if fame doesn't provide freedom and acceptance, then what does? And will WAZ reconnect with his true self, standing up for all that makes him truly unique?

Each of the acts that follows introduces events or choices from WAZ's past with a dollop of social commentary in the form of The GREYS, a marching representation of the masses too self-absorbed to look up from their glowing mobile screens. 

I loved the energy VOLTA brings right out of the gate, and its earnest introduction of other characters, including the free-spirited ELA (the aforementioned Italian roller skating gold medalist) and a Canadian duo who emerged as show-starting favorites performing hand to hand on a unicycle.

Some may recognize these performers, Phillippe Bélanger and Marie-Lee Guilbert, from appearances on "America's Got Talent."

The part when Guilbert stands atop her pedaling partner's head -- WHOA!

Many in the audience also gasped during the "Mirage" segment also known as the "hair suspension" act, in which Brazilian aerialist Vanessa Ferreira Calado opens her segment in a seated yoga position only to levitate and perform the remainder of her solo while suspended by a single pony tail braided to a simple chord and silver ring. 

OUCH!

And YIKES!

And breathtaking.

I mentioned VOLTA's comic relief, performed in this tour with great timing and a slight Russian accent by Andrey Kislitsin, who shares a battle royale with a trio of laundry machines. 

Watch closely for a climbing act reminiscent of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting "Ladder to the Moon," and a wake up call via the "Rise & Shine" trampo-wall performance. 

And the bikes. Many, many bikes.

VOLTA is a different kind of Cirque du Soleil show, and I recommend it for anyone looking to reunite with the Sk8er Boi or Gal inside each of us. Check it out at Atlantic Station now through Jan. 5.

Photos via Cirque du Soleil. All costumes by Zaldy Goco. Image credits include work by Matt Beard (WAZ, Mr. Wow, Unicycle, Trampowall), Michael Kass (The GREYS), Patrice Lamoureaux (BMX, ELA) and Benoit Z. Leroux (Mirage). 

With Simplicity & Class, New Paris 2024 Logo Fuses Flame, Style, Gold Medals and French Symbolism

An email from the Paris 2024 media relations team arrived today like a batch of fresh cookies.

It seems the organizing committee baked up a sweet and golden macaron in the form of a new logo for the post-Tokyo Olympiad.

And like the delightful French confections savored around the world, the new Paris 2024 emblem relies on four simple ingredients, according to the official announcement.

In place of egg whites, sugar, almond powder and food color, the "new face" of the French Olympic Games relies on three emblems and a dash of style, almost perfect in its simplicity at once bursting with multiple flavors of symbolism.

The icons in this case, as described in press materials, include:

-- The medal: a symbol of sport and victory

-- The flame: a symbol of the Olympic Movement

-- Marianne, a.k.a. Liberté: a symbol for all of France. You know, the topless banner-bearing beauty in the Louvre's famous painting by Eugène Delacroix (see below)

When assembled the trio yields a face, embodying the idea of a friendly, people's Games (see above left).

Add to this an original Art Deco-inspired typeface drawn from "a complete artistic movement which reached its height at the 1924 Games in Paris" and you have "an emblem that pays tribute to Paris."

Organizers also point out that, for the first time, the golden visage represents both the Olympics and Paralympics. For this writer, that's the jam or ganache that makes this cookie of a logo even sweeter.

Here's a video the Paris 2024 press team shared with other logo-related materials:

Digging the visuals that tell the story of the logo. The lone hiccup of the day's announcement may be the selection of a male narrator to describe a logo otherwise of feminine physique.

The press materials did not state the venue at which the Paris 2024 Olympic emblem unveiling took place, but photos from the event included the city's mayor, several Olympians and Paralympians, and media. Looks like a fun time was enjoyed by all. I'm guessing they feasted on macarons en masse. 

Can you see the lips of Liberty blowing a kiss in the new logo? What do you think of the design? Is there anything you love about it or would love to change? Please post a comment and let's discuss!

Olympic photo, video and logo via Paris 2024. Image of Liberty Leading the People via this link. 

Richard Jewell Trailer From Eastwood Looks Good

The trailer to the upcoming film "Richard Jewell" hit the Internet last week, and in just a few days the two-minute clip from Warner Bros. racked up a half-million views via official channels and movie fan sites. Check out the tension-building intro here:

This first glimpse at Clint Eastwood's 38th directing gig is void of many surprises, but it does reveal a few details not yet widely reported for the film.

First, it appears the score to "Richard Jewell" may be composed by Arturo Sandoval, the jazz musician who provided original works for Eastwood's most recent feature "The Mule." Sounds good.

Second, the narrative -- at least as presented by "Richard Jewell Official Trailer" No. 1 -- seems to remain in step with its source material, the Marie Brenner article for Vanity Fair magazine. Potential props to screenwriter Billy Ray for resisting a fictionalized drama as seen in other Eastwood "based on a true story" narratives. The explosion filmed at Centennial Olympic Park this summer is convincing!

Third, Kathy Bates, Olivia Wilde, John Hamm and Sam Rockwell each brought their A-game to their roles. I can hardly wait to see how they deliver the goods as Jewell's mother, reporter, investigator and attorney, respectively.

And finally, it seems the actor in the title role, Paul Walter Hauser, is made for the part, more so than Jonah Hill, the Oscar nominee originally slated to don Jewell's security gear (Hill is now a producer). Though convincing in "Moneyball" and other dramatic roles, he's perhaps too good looking for this one!

Audiences will recognize Hauser for two prior roles, including one as heavy on the Olympic relevance, starting with 2017's "I, Tonya," in which he portrayed Tonya Harding's bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt.

More recently he effectively portrayed a witless Colorado Springs hater in Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman."

Hauser's close-up mug appears repeatedly in the "Richard Jewell" trailer and he is convincing as the real-life Jewell who appeared on "SNL" and many other TV broadcasts of 1996 to the early 2000s, when he was finally exonerated.

The trailer also gives prominence to an off-screen villain, Eric Rudolph, who on July 27, 1996, uttered the eerie phrase to a 9-1-1 operator from a downtown Atlanta payphone:

"There's a bomb in Centennial Park ... you have thirty minutes!" 

In the video, Hamm as FBI investigator and Hauser as Jewell state this sentence a combined eight times, with an ascending intensity that crescendos to match Rudolph's actual recorded creepiness.

Punctuating the trailer, I like the tag line presented before the film's credit list:

THE WORLD WILL KNOW HIS NAME

AND THE TRUTH

Which brings me to a curiosity of the trailer: portrayal of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newsroom.

In addition to a fictional news editor with a made-up name plate (verified in an email I exchanged with the real AJC Olympic editor of the day), there's a made-up version of the iconic "It's Atlanta!" front page dated September 18, 1990.

Why the Eastwood prop team included a 2019 photo of Midtown Atlanta in their mocked-up news page baffles me. The other headlines on the dummy newspaper also have no resemblance to the actual page announcing when Atlanta won its Olympic bid.

These are minor details. Big picture, one hopes the film otherwise sticks to the facts when it hits theatres on December 13.

Photos via this Collider.com report, which credits the images to Claire Folger/Warner Bros., except for the image of the clip board, which appeared on CineReflex without photo credit (possibly a still grabbed from the trailer). The image of Olivia Wilde with framed newspaper is a screen grab from the "Richard Jewell" Official Trailer on YouTube via Warner Bros.