Butter flyers are among the wondrous sights. Photo courtesy of the Maui Arts & Cultural Center

Living in a tropical paradise, you’d think an opportunity to escape reality would be the last thing Maui residents would want. But give us a chance to journey to another fantastic element — even for an evening — and we’ll line up to buy tickets, whether it’s the acrobatics of the Shanghai Circus, the poetic storytelling of Cirque Eloize’s “Rain” or the ethereal dancing of “Momix.” Seems the lure of the incredible is as strong for us here as anywhere …

Such is the case with the upcoming “Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy,” which will fill the Castle Theater at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center May 15 through 17. The recent addition of two more performances brings the total to four over the course of three days. And it promises to be a spectacle worth seeing.

Creator Neil Goldberg and Cirque Productions will create a virtual rain forest onstage, complete with towering trees, gigantic flowers and dangling vines, and inhabited by a strange menagerie of balancing giraffes,