‘Cirque Ingenieux’: To Air Is Human

If you like the idea of a soporific European-style circus set to New Age Muzak, you’ll want to tune in during tonight’s KOCE-TV Channel 50 pledge-drive broadcast of “Cirque Ingenieux.” It may go down better with the sound off.

This “child’s journey into a dream landscape,” as the press release describes it, starts out nicely, with a crowded stage of international performers in 19th century dress, stirring melodies from Bizet’s “Carmen” and an awed small visitor named Sarah (Ekaterina Fedosseeva). She watches an adorably elfin acrobat and a fabulous multiple-hoop spinner.

Unfortunately for us, Sarah hooks up with an angel (Colleen Ryan) who warbles unintelligible lyrics to composer-musician Kitaro’s bland mishmash of Asian, Indian and Western sounds.

The angel introduces Sarah to an international group of aerial artists, contortionists and other performers who tend to substitute pseudo-exotic poses or vague wafting about for a genuine sense of drama, grace and daring.

In Part I, a female trio desperately in need of a choreographer shares a trapeze. Bells and rattles announce a group of women in unitards and triple-faced masks who writhe while two contortionists balance in one-handed poses.

After the first pledge break and a dullish aerial rope sequence, things briefly perk up. A fellow in white body powder and tiny trunks does a one-handed headstand on top of the head of his seated partner.

You watch with the deliciously horrified fascination that great circus acts evoke while the guy on the bottom slowly stands, his head wobbling with the strain of who-knows-how-many pounds per square inch.

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Then it’s time for another pledge break. And now things go seriously touchy-feely, with more dismal angel-singing and a fellow who descends from the misty heavens to suspend himself from a couple of bolts of cloth. For some reason, Sarah--who makes an appearance from time to time to nudge along the story line, such as it is--simply adores him.

But the angel waves the girl onward to her aerial apotheosis: a too-brief duet with the winsome tiny acrobat (Anna Shvetsova) of the prologue. Intrusive shots of a rapturous Buffalo, N.Y., audience--on the troupe’s U.S. tour--demolish the feeble attempts at creating an aura of fantasy.

* “Cirque Ingenieux,” KOCE-TV Channel 50 tonight at 8 and 11 p.m. Also Aug. 21 on KCET-TV Channel 28.