ReviewTORONTO STAR FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015

Theatrical magic is perhaps the hardest thing in the world to describe, which is why the simplest solution in discussing Odysseo, which opened Wednesday night at the Port Lands, is to just tell you to go see it.

But that would be the coward’s way out, so let me do my best to try.

Normand Latourelle had the inspired idea of uniting humans and horses in a spectacular display of mutual skill. He then hired masters such as Benjamin Aillaud and Darren Charles to teach the equine masters and their flesh-and-blood servants how to play together in perfect harmony.

He then splashed it on a giant canvas, where nature and artifice combine to present every possible topography on the planet and set the whole thing spinning like an inspired carousel.

The end result is Odysseo, now in Toronto for its second visit, and it’s a show with which familiarity breeds content.

You get a certain pleasant tingle just entering the spacious Big Top, where you know that theatrical legerdemain will soon be happening. And as the music starts its insistent percussive beat, you wait for the curtains to part and the horses to appear. And they do. Sometimes solo, sometimes in pairs, sometimes dozens on stage at the same time: white and black and tan and grey and every dappled variation in between. Their beauty is something to behold.

But the most superb part of Odysseo is that, while encouraging you to celebrate the beauty of the animals on their own, you thrill even more when the human element is added.

A solo animal capering through space is magnificent, but once a rider is joined as part of the package, a splendid poetic synergy occurs. We get to savour the dual grace of human and horse, working their way to a beautiful resolution where they almost seem to defy gravity.

The permutations and combinations that we see are limitless, not just because acrobatics frequently become part of the package, but because the combination of lighting, projections and scenery that are presented to us can take us from the frozen north to the most sun-baked desert in the matter of an instant.

We start on a seemingly compact stage that grows larger and larger as the evening progresses. At one point a solo rider guides a dozen untethered horses around the arena in a series of dazzling patterns and you wonder at the alchemy that allows it to happen.

A giant carousel is lowered and we get a sequence where wooden horses are frozen in space, while human gymnasts bathed in magenta light undulate before us in never-ending patterns.

Our breath is taken away time and time again by startling compositions that evoke all the iconic uses of horses and riders we carry with us from the books we have read and the films we have seen. There is grace, there is poetry, there is wit and there is wonder. By the time the entire stage is magically flooded and the animals joyously caper through the water, splashing us all with glee, you will find yourself wearing a smile that just won’t go away.

Odysseo is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that must be experienced to be understood. Do yourself a favour and enjoy this breathtaking piece of supernatural entertainment. There is nothing like it on the planet.