Pretensions did finally manage to secure tickets to Nebbia at the Sejong Arts Center in Seoul. Nebbia is circus acrobatics made performance theatre - it is a collaboration between Cirque Eloize of Montreal, Canada and Teatro Sunil of Lugano, Switzerland, under the direction of Swiss-Italian Director, Daniele Finza Pasca. The name of the show, Nebbia, means "fog" in Italian and that is the theme of the show, alluded to in the spoken segments and bridging the gap between the plebian and the surreal.

P would like to start by saying that she really enjoyed the show, which was a good thing since obtaining tickets worked out to be harder than winning the lottery, or nearly so. P has already blogged about her experience with booking online and consulting the hotel concierge. Well, P flogged across town to the theatre after work one day, as the website had said that the Sejong Arts Center was open until 8pm. Was it? Maybe only on performance days, but it was distinctly closed when she got there on Tuesday. Some english-challenged but helpful staff suggested coming back 3 hours before the performance, though not on Wednesday since it was the Asian premiere and was already sold out. P, however, seldom leaves it this late as the chances of tickets are distinctly small, so she tried coming back on Wednesday afternoon, to be told by (more language-capable) staff that you couldn't book direct. In the end, P inveigled theatre staff to call a ticket hotline and book it for her (no matter how dangerous it is to give out credit card numbers - at least she knew who she was giving it to). With this, she managed to secure one of the last few tickets to the Thursday night performance.

On collecting the tickets, P was handed a white handkerchief and instructions in Korean, which quite mystified her. However, the performance was thankfully in Italian-accented English and it was explained that waving the handkerchief was to serve as a form of applause. It quite fit the surreal dreamscape of the performance, which in turn found a perfect home in the wood and technology surrounds of the Sejong Arts Center, one of the nicer theatres that P has been in. Plush and very comfortable seats, and back-of-seat screens for subtitles, plus a grand acoustic, helped soften the blow of some very costly tickets.

At the beginning of Nebbia, we are introduced to the main theme and set for the show, a fog-draped french(canadian?) village with its cast of colourful characters, such as the Fishermen trio, the Mayor, the Fool etc. As the fog palpably descends, all things become possible and dream turns into reality. Psychology becomes literal as we see the lights swirl and follow the Fool and strange juxtapositions (graceful acrobatics amidst dangling pig carcasses) are commonplace. Apricot coloured lights bathe the upthrusting rods of a make-believe forests, which becomes a sea of spinning and stopping plates as villagers play tag amidst wandering tricycle-like automatons. A strange diamond-like cage ascends and descends setting off a tranquil arial ballet staged by some of the villagers, whilst others play the haunting recurring theme of Nebbia on violins and accordions. The entire company takes the stage clad in stiffened white tutus, men and women alike, to dance a rollicking jig. A youth sets off spinning flying apples bathed in mist and lime-green light. Between everything comes threads of the fog, flowing languidly off the stage and up the aisles, carrying the audience into the surreal dreamscape of Nebbia.

Sejong Arts Center was completely full and the Korean audience seemed to enjoy it, although some of the jokes appeared to get lost in Korean translation. P thoroughly enjoyed an excursion into a very strange world - catch Nebbia if it comes to your part of the world!