The circassian fable
returns to Montreal

Cirque du Soleil revives ECHO, an acrobatic allegory where a cube unfolds a universe

By Sophie Jama

May 24, 2026

Under the Big Top set up at the Quai Jacques-Cartier, Cirque du Soleil lets its poetic signature resound once again with ECHO, a colourful acrobatic fable in which a monumental cube becomes the matrix of all possibilities. Until July 31, 2026, some 2,500 spectators per evening are invited to step into this luminous microcosm.

At the heart of the circular ring stands a gigantic cube, more than just a set piece: a fully fledged protagonist. Its sides become screens, supporting hypnotic projections, at times urban, at times cosmic, at times dreamlike.

This cube does not content itself with being gazed at: it unfolds, fragments and recomposes like a giant puzzle, revealing an unsuspected interior, a transformable labyrinth that lends itself to every scenic metamorphosis. From one tableau to the next, it glides, turns on itself, hollows out voids and adorns itself with new surfaces. In turn, it becomes a starry façade, a suspended cliff, a cage of illusions and a setting for the acrobatic bodies that inhabit it. It gives the show a strong visual backbone, around which the staging weaves its narrative.

In this geometric universe, it is not humans who rule, but a teeming bestiary. Musicians, acrobats and singers don masks, horns, stylized muzzles, tails and accessories that tip them over to the animal side. One seems to glimpse a contemporary menagerie, a kind of Noah’s Ark transposed into an urban landscape, where each species brings its own colour, rhythm and way of moving. A few human figures remain, however, like narrative anchor points.

There is Future, the young heroine, a luminous silhouette who moves through the show with determined innocence. There is this man with the air of a geographer or architect, witness and world-maker, who seems to be in dialogue with the cubic structure. And above all, there are the two clowns, a delirious duo that punctures solemnity, plays with miniature cubes, subverts the codes and offers the audience hilarious breaths between two acrobatic dizzy spells.

Music is the show’s lifeblood

The animal musicians and singers weave a rich soundscape, at times driving, at times delicate, where the voice rubs shoulders with electronic textures and more organic accents. This music does not merely accompany the action: it propels it, marks its rhythm and comments on it. The spectator finds themself following a rhythmic motif as one would follow a narrative thread. The score gives the cube an inner vibration, as though the structure itself resonated with the characters’ emotions.

Very early on, the show’s language unfolds through circus prowess. After the clowns’ antics, a solo aerial number on elastic straps sketches almost calligraphic trajectories in the air. Then two female artists appear, suspended by their hair. In the blink of an eye, the entire tent holds its breath. Their bodies sway, spin and twist with a grace that makes one forget the discipline’s potential brutality. Hair becomes the anchor point of an aerial dream, a fragile line between earth and sky.

Another tableau, on the cube’s walls, will long remain in my memory: under a star-studded firmament, acrobats walk, dance, literally run along the walls. Space flips, vertical becomes horizontal, perception tilts. Sumptuous costumes, precise lighting, choreography measured to the millimetre: everything conspires to create a moment of pure suspension, when you feel that time itself has stopped to hold its breath.

ECHO summons a wide palette of disciplines: trapeze, aerial work, contortion, icarian games, banquine, human cradle… The acts follow one another with a fluidity that makes you forget how complex the transitions truly are. One of the most striking remains this duo where a base, lying on his back, propels and catches his partner with his feet, as if juggling a body turned feather-light. Lines extend, spins accelerate, the lifts rise into pyramids, until the eye can barely keep up.

The clowns, for their part, return as a necessary leitmotif. They comment, divert, and offer burlesque counterpoints to the gravity of the feats. Their presence gives the show a kind of breathing rhythm: inhalation before the exploit, exhalation in laughter.

A mechanical giant and the echo of myths

From the bowels of the cube emerges a gigantic robotic humanoid, a figure that evokes both cinematic King Kong and a creature sprung from a futuristic dream. Faced with it, the small humanity on the ring seems tiny, yet never resigns. This confrontation resonates like a contemporary echo of great founding myths: without ever naming them, the show calls to mind Noah’s Ark, tales of the flood, and questions of survival and coexistence between species, transposed here into an imaginary city.

ECHO does not hammer home a moral. It favours suggestion, metaphor, the emergence of powerful images that leave it to the spectator to weave their own inner narrative. One can read in it as much an ode to collaboration and empathy as a meditation on the human capacity to rebuild – or to dismantle – the world that surrounds us.

With ECHO, Cirque du Soleil confirms its mastery: a visual universe that is instantly recognisable, fluid dramaturgy, and a troupe of performers at the top of their art. The monumental cube, a genuine dramaturgical engine, gives the show a striking identity, while the gallery of animals, clowns, giants and dreamers reminds us that the circus is, first and foremost, an art of shared wonder.

ECHO – Cirque du Soleil

Under the Big Top at Quai Jacques-Cartier
Old Port of Montreal
May 21 to July 31, 2026

Images: Jean-François Savaria

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Sophie Jama holds a PhD in anthropology and a master’s degree in comparative literature. She has published several works in Québec and France. For the past 15 years, she has covered Montreal’s cultural scene, including theatre, dance, circus, and other performing arts.