By Jonathan Williams

When Cavalia brought its horse-centric Cirque du Soleil-style fantasy to Atlanta two years ago, it quickly sold out its initial four-week run. After selling out an additional six weeks, it was clear that Atlanta was the place for Cavalia‘s new Odysseo show to make its United States debut. When the show opens tonight under the world’s largest touring big top (which is more than twice the size of the original show’s tent), horses will perform alongside acrobats in breathtaking choreographed routines in surreal settings such as a Southwestern dessert, a serene waterfall and a carousel-like display in which angelic aerialists float above four majestic horses.

While most of the human performers choose to focus either on acrobatics or horse riding, one aerialist from the original Cavalia will be returning as both an aerialist and now a rider. As she prepares for her debut in these dual roles, Majolie Nadeau takes a moment to tell Wrestling with Pop Culture why she decided to add equestrianism to her athletic skills and how acrobatics compares to riding horses.

Majolie Nadeau is one of angelic aerialists in "Paseo," one of the scenes from "Odysseo." Photo courtesy 360 Media

You’re one of the few members of the Odysseo cast who was also in the original Cavalia. How would you say this new show differs from the one we saw two years ago?

For me personally the main difference is everything is bigger. I prefer the relationship I have here with the horses and for me it’s really a big change because in the first one I was mostly doing aerial acrobatic dancing and in this show I only do one act in acrobatics and I do seven numbers on horses. So for me it’s a really big improvement and a big difference.

Why did you decide to continue doing acrobatics while also working more closely with the horses?

I didn’t want to do a transition, I wanted to do both. But in this show I had to choose between some numbers with the horses and some aerial numbers. Since I already know everything I can do in aerial acrobatics, I wanted to push the opposite side that I didn’t know as much about. So I trained to do the horses part. I already had a base in acrobatics, so I wanted to push my base in all the levels.

How does working with the horses compare to working with other acrobats?

For me as an aerialist, it’s more working with bungees and ropes. The main difference is, with the horses you cannot understand what he has in his mind. If one day he is not happy, if one day he wants to go do something else, you cannot control it so you have to work with it. You cannot block him and be like, “No, you’re not doing this. You’re doing this.” You have to make it work, whatever happens, but you have to follow the number and you have to follow your horses. You cannot force the horses to do something, you need to play with the horse so it goes into the routine.

In the "Odysseo" finale, Majolie Nadeau performs on horseback. Photo courtesy 360 Media

The horses seem to know where they’re supposed to be within the routine and will nudge or bite each other to keep each other in line.

Some of them will a little. If one of them is not in the right position, another one is biting, like, “Move. This is my place, it’s not your place.” So some of them will, but some of them won’t. It really depends on the horses and the director they have.

When the horses hear the audience reaction and applause, do you think they understand and appreciate it the way the human performers do?

I think so. At the beginning, the applause for horses is a little bit scary because it’s a noise they don’t hear a lot. It’s a big noise, but they get used to it. To say thank you, we pet them and tap them on the neck. But they know what it means when 2,300 people are applauding in the big top. They get used to it, they understand and they like when there is noise. They are interested in the noise and sometimes if they have a lot of energy they will go a little bit crazy and get excited and enjoy the applause.

For more information, go to www.cavalia.net.