Cirque du Soleil's LUZIA Brings Its Big Top to Tysons

Cirque du Soleil's LUZIA raises its iconic Big Top at Lerner Town Square at Tysons II for a limited Washington-area run September 6-October 19, 2025. Styled as "a waking dream of Mexico," the production fuses world-class acrobatics with live music and a mesmerizing onstage rain system-an innovative hallmark that turns water into part of the choreography.

Cirque du Soleil - LUZIA Under the Big Top at Tysons

LUZIA unfolds like a surreal travelogue-one moment an old movie set, the next a tranquil cenote or a bustling dance hall-blending tradition and modernity into sweeping tableaus. The show's name itself nods to its central motifs: luz (light) and lluvia (rain). What you'll feel throughout is Cirque's signature poetry in motion: painterly lighting, bold color, and character-driven scenes that celebrate Mexico's landscapes, myths, and indomitable spirit.

LUZIA strings together audacious set pieces that reimagine classic circus disciplines: a hummingbird troupe sprints and vaults through hoops while twin treadmills accelerate, reverse, and shift underfoot, turning precision hoop diving into a high-speed, nail-biter. As the dream deepens, Cyr-wheel artists and a trapeze flyer share the stage until the rain curtain snaps on mid-act, etching patterns in falling water and raising the technical stakes as metal rims and rigging go slick. A sun-splashed "beach" vignette spotlights a lifeguard-themed hand-balancing routine that climbs from canes to towering height, a witty feat of control set inside LUZIA's cinematic tableaux. Elsewhere, contortion and aerial sequences play with scale and shadow-proof that LUZIA's bravura isn't only about difficulty; it's about storytelling through movement, light and, uniquely, water.

LUZIA made headlines as the first Cirque touring production to integrate water as a living design element. Beneath the Big Top, a custom system releases and sculpts rain into symbols and motifs, then recycles the water for the duration of the city run-warmed for performer comfort and drained through a stage perforated with 94,657 tiny openings into a hidden basin. It's an elegant marriage of spectacle and sustainability-and one of the show's unforgettable signatures.

The show is conceived and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, a theatre-and-circus auteur known for fusing poetic imagery with humanistic storytelling. The visual world is shaped by Oscar-winning production designer Eugenio Caballero, whose sets glide from desert suns to moonlit pools, and costume designer Giovanna Buzzi, whose palette and textures evoke Mexico without cliche. Composer Simon Carpentier supplies a propulsive, brass-kissed score (with album contributions from Nortec Collective's Bostich + Fussible) that threads the scenes with momentum and heart.

LUZIA distills what fans adore about Cirque-virtuosic feats, imaginative design, live music-then elevates it with rain-driven stagecraft and images that linger long after the final bow. It's a transporting, family-friendly spectacle that feels intimate under the Big Top yet vast in its emotional sweep-a feast for the eyes, ears, and imagination.