Odysseo is a show about the relationship between horses and humans now and throughout history. But make no mistake, it's all about the horses. Odysseo’s best moments are also some of its simplest, when the horses are left to their own devices, at liberty, free to listen to their trainers or splash around in water if they so desire. But getting to that moment of breathtaking joy and beauty is an immense undertaking, and what continues to motivate the show’s creator Normand Latourelle.
Latourelle grew up in Montreal. When he was 13, he produced his first show, and he has not looked back. In 1985, he landed at a little start-up looking to reinvent the circus dubbed Cirque Du Soleil. And that turned out pretty well.
“When we started Cirque, I am very proud to say, we reinvented the circus because there was no animals in the show at that time,” he says. After five years with the groundbreaking Montreal company, Latourelle was ready to try something new.
“I didn’t want to create a second Cirque de Soleil, I’m the type of guy who likes to create something that does not exist,” Latourelle says. “The first time I ever experienced a horse on a stage, I just thought they were very spectacular, but it was more the public, the way they were looking at the horses, not the performers. This was the time I found to that they are the most beautiful animals on earth and very playful and attractive to people.”
Latourelle started to travel around the world watching, studying any horse show he could find. This from a guy who grew up in the big city of Montreal. The only horses he encountered were bolted onto a merry-go-round at his local playground.
“For me, a horse was like a cow, something in the field, and nothing much more,” he says. “But I knew I was going to create something different, something that integrated the horse world and the performing arts world, something with a lot of technology.”
Fourteen years ago, Latourelle premiered his first horse show Cavalia under a tent in Toronto’s Distillery District, and it has been so successful that it still tours the planet. He added his second show, Odysseo, with 65 horses and 50 artists, which has toured under the world’s largest big top since the fall of 2011.
For Odysseo, Latourelle took his equine obsession to even greater heights creating a stage the size of a football field home to a set that includes massive video screens three times the size of a typical IMAX screen, a 30-foot mountain, an 18-ton merry-go-round that is lowered from the ceiling, a forest and a lake with 40,000 gallons of water. All to achieve a series of sublime moments between an audience and a horse where, seemingly, nothing else exists.
“I believe that horses are universal,” he says. “Wherever you go, we have something in common in the world. We wouldn’t be here today without the horse. And you see very fast that the relationship between humans and horses becomes the history of humanity.”
Odysseo opens in Mississauga on June 21 and runs until July 16.
