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Fascination Issue 171
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T h e U n o f f i c i a l
C i r q u e d u S o l e i l N e w s l e t t e r
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http://www.CirqueFascination.com
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VOLUME 18, NUMBER 4 April 2018 ISSUE #171
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Welcome to the latest edition of Fascination, the Unofficial Cirque
du Soleil Newsletter.
* * * CIRQUE DU SOLEIL & VOLTA IN MOURNING * * *
It is with immense sadness that Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group
reports that a tragic accident occurred [on the evening of] March 17th
during a performance of its show VOLTA, in Tampa, Florida. While he
was performing the aerial straps number, long-time aerialist, Yann
Arnaud, fell onto the stage. Emergency procedures were immediately
activated and Yann was transported to the nearest hospital, where he
later passed away from his injuries. The entire Cirque du Soleil
family is in shock and devastated by this tragedy. Yann had been with
us for over 15 years and was loved by all who had the chance to know
him. Over the coming days and weeks, our focus will be on supporting
Yanns family and our employees, especially the VOLTA team, as we go
through these difficult times together, said Daniel Lamarre,
President and CEO of Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group. Cirque du
Soleil is currently gathering more information about this tragedy
and is offering their full support and transparent collaboration to
the authorities as they look into the circumstances of this accident.
VOLTA is currently in hiatus and at press time there's been no word
on the cause of the accident.
* * * CIRQUE IN SAUDI ARABIA * * *
Saudi Arabia is embracing Hollywood with open arms, notching deals
with live theater producer Cirque du Soleil and the world's largest
exhibitor AMC Theaters, as its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman courts
investments in the reforming oil-rich nation. Its entertainment agency,
the General Entertainment Authority, on April 4th announced a new
Cirque du Soleil show in Saudi Arabia, plus partnerships with touring
company Feld Entertainment, National Geographic Encounter experiences
and festival promoter IMG Artists. The Cirque du Soleil contract will
see the Montreal, Canada-based company create a new production designed
for a one-time performance on Saudi Arabias National Day on Sunday,
September 23rd. It will be the first Cirque du Soleil show in the Gulf
nation. "Well have 150 artists onstage, our largest cast ever," said
Jonathan Tetrault, COO of Cirque du Soleil. "The right conditions are
now in place for us to perform for a mixed cast and a mixed audience."
The performance, performed live for the Prince, will also be broadcast
on Saudi Television.
* * * A SHOW... WITH HORSES?! * * *
Now here's an interesting development that as far as we know is NOT an
April Fool's joke: "Darren Michael Charles has been named creative
artistic director and choreographer for a breathtaking new Cirque du
Soleil spectacular that will being touring in six months' time,"
according to the Grimsby Telegraph. "Darren's vast experience will
stand in good stead as he will be directing large acrobatic and
gymnastic acts, contortionists, clowns, aerial flying acts, dancing
and juggling, and... horses!" HORSES?! IN A CIRQUE DU SOLEIL SHOW?!
That's what's being reported but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Darren is gifted with horses, having gained experience with many other
prestigious dance and touring companies, going on to direct and
choreograph the hugely successful Cavalia's Odysseo North American
Tour, but whether he - and this type of show - is a good fit for the
Cirque du Soleil Entertainment empire is not yet known. Cirque du
Soleil has long prided itself on being a circus showcasing human
strengths without resulting to animal exploitation, but if this news
article is true, it looks as if the tides have finally turned. It
should be noted Gilles Ste-Croix tried his hand at an equestrian
show - Cheval Théâtre - which featured 30 horses and as many artist-
acrobats under canvas that toured throughout in North America in 2002-
2003 to some success, so the idea might work again. Once were ready
we will tour Europe and Asia, Im really looking forward to it, said
Darren.
* * * CELEBRATE PROJECT IS NO MORE * * *
The Celebrate Project was introduced to the world on November 12, 2014,
when both Cirque du Soleil and Grupo Vidanta announced its plans to
construct and operate a first-of-its-kind immersive theme park and
resort experience in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. "Grupo Vidanta is offering
us an amazing sandbox in which we can unleash our creativity," said Guy
Laliberté at the time. "Both our groups strive for perfection. Grupo
Vidanta is passionate and cares for the environment. We set ourselves
the challenge of creating something unlike anything the world has seen
before." The entertainment experience, which has been under development
since then - and delayed on more than one occasion (it was originally
scheduled to make its debut in 2018, then 2019, and lastly 2020 before
the split) - would include a water park, a nature park, as well as an
evening show accommodating as many as 3,000 to 5,000 spectators - in
addition to three themed hotel-resorts and another JOYA-style dinner
show. Each experience within the entertainment park would be animated
by Cirque and follow a common storyline. What happened? Besides the
problems that befell The Goddard Group (the designers) following the
Gary Goddard scandal in late 2017, and the aforementioned construction
delays since the project's announcement, it seems that Grupo Vidanta
became fed up with a lack of support from Cirque du Soleil in recent
months. So they parted ways. The project is still going to be built -
Vidanta has rebranded the effort "The Parks" (read more about it here
< https://www.vidanta.com/web/nuevo-vallarta/the-parks > ) - it just
won't contain any of that Cirque du Soleil magic we'd been looking
forward to getting. However, it will still have a touch of that 'ol
Guy Laliberté magic, as Lune Rouge - Guy's new company - has picked up
the development slack on the project.
* * * ONE DROP REACHES GOAL EARLY! * * *
Marking World Water Day, ONE DROP, the international foundation created
by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté to bring safe water access to
people across the globe, is proud to report that its signature fund-
raising event, One Night for One Drop imagined by Cirque du Soleil, has
surpassed the $35 million goal it set for itself when the event
inaugurated in 2013.
Presented by MGM Resorts International, the sixth edition of One Night
for One Drop was held on Friday, March 2, when some of the biggest names
in entertainment came together inside the Michael Jackson ONE Theatre at
Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, for this years one-night-
only production inspired by the life of GRAMMY-nominated singer-song
writer Jewel. The sold-out performance and its gala celebration
catapulted One Drop past its original fundraising goal.
In celebration of World Water Day, One Drop is launching a charity
auction where you can bid on Jewels exclusive guitar she played during
One Night for One Drop 2018. Go here (https://bit.ly/2p9B1xA) for more
information. All proceeds benefit One Drops global water efforts, with
a portion of the proceeds going to the Las Vegas Community.
* * * IN THE ISSUE * * *
The bulk of our work looking back at classic show critiques is behind
us now - we're in the home stretch. There's just two more shows to go!
With that in mind we take a look at classic reviews of Dralion - the
first in a long stretch of shows that did not have Dragone and his
team at the helm. Guy Caron, Dralion's Director, said this of his
show: "It's a celebration of life; I'm going to show around my happi-
ness to be alive!" Dralion certainly ushered in a new era for Cirque
du Soleil... see what the press thought of Dralion as it originally
made its way across the North American continent. Additionally, back
in January, Lighting & Sound America went behind-the-scenes at VOLTA to
see what made it tick... technically. In part one (this issue) go
behind-the-curtain to explore some the design elements that went into
the show's set, stage, and more. In Part Two (next issue), we'll
conclude with two very important parts of a show's scenography: the
lighting and sound design.
Before we go, though, we want to wish Amaluna a happy anniversary.
They celebrated their 2,000th performance on March 22nd. HOORAY!
Okay, so let's go!
/----------------------------------------------------\
| |
| Join us on the web at: |
| < www.cirquefascination.com > |
| |
| At CirqueCast: |
| < http://www.cirquecast.com/ > |
| |
| Realy Simple Syndication (RSS) Feed (News Only): |
| < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?feed=rss2 > |
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\----------------------------------------------------/
- Ricky "Richasi" Russo
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CONTENTS
===========
o) Cirque Buzz -- News, Rumours & Sightings
* La Presse -- General News & Highlights
* Q&A -- Quick Chats & Press Interviews
o) Itinéraire -- Tour/Show Information
* BigTop Shows -- Under the Grand Chapiteau
* Arena Shows -- In Stadium-like venues
* Resident Shows -- Performed en Le Théâtre
o) Outreach -- Updates from Cirque's Social Widgets
* Webseries -- Official Online Featurettes
* Videos -- Official Peeks & Noted Fan Finds
o) Fascination! Features
* "VOLTA: A TECHINCAL BOX OF WONDERS"
Part 1 of 2: Elemental Design
A Special Reprint from Lighting & Sound America
* "We're Off and Running - A Series of Classic Critiques"
Part 12 of 16: Dralion, Part 1 (1999-2001)
By: Ricky Russo - Atlanta, Georgia (USA)
o) Copyright & Disclaimer
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CIRQUE BUZZ -- NEWS, RUMOURS & SIGHTINGS
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***************************************************************
LA PRESSE -- General News & Highlights
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Hommage 4 is "Juste une ptite nuite"
{Mar.13.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
{Translated from the original French via Google Translate}
TROIS-RIVIÈRES Cirque du Soleil will be welcoming Cirque du Soleil
to Cogeco Amphitheater next summer for a tribute to the Colocs. The
announcement was made Tuesday by the creative team that intends to
stand out from the last two shows in Trois-Rivières bothby working
from the bands soundtracks and thus the voice of Dédé Fortin that a
live musical performance on the scene.
Is does not expect to see a group of musicians settled before the
spectators but a multi-instrumentalist musician and dancer who lead
other performers in its wake. As the show will be marked by percussive
dance and the use of unconventional instruments by the stage artists,
we expect to surprise the audience by an inventive re-reading of the
soundtrack.
The designers decided to locate Just a Little Night in a dilapidated
alley where
an eclectic gang of friends meets every night under the
twilight of a street lamp to explode urban greyness and burst a
percussive a festive spiral inspired by the percussive poetry of the
Colocs to quote the very text of Cirque du Soleils press release.
To do this, we intend to accompany the music of an acrobatic universe
different from what we saw in the past by presenting to the public in
particular new disciplines.
While Daniel Fortin, Executive Creative Director at 45 Degrees spoke
of the emotion that the Colocs always inspire for Quebeckers, the
director Jean-Guy Legault insisted on the surprises that will be
reserved for the spectators in addition to the aspect festive of
representation. The idea of ??the show is to find the spirit of the
Colocs, he said. It was an eclectic and unifying group that was very
engaged through strong and impactful texts. Even though the band did
not have a very long life, it has left a lot of people.
What we will propose is to spend a night in the boots of the Colocs.
We want to find their grungy spirit with very lucid words. It will
be colorful and very percussive. The scene itself will become a
musical instrument. The action will take place on the stage and in the
room.
We want to find what we lived when we saw the Colocs show: it seemed
to be one of their chums. Their colors were those of the people who
were invited to join the group and who gave a lot of diversity to
their music.
At the fourth show in this series of tributes, the challenge remains
as great for the designers. Its a challenge because its not the
same group, not the same story that is told, not the same time, not
the same speech, says Jean-Guy Legault. For the Colocs, the danger is
to lose their word. We tend to listen to music forgetting the very
impactful texts. Dédé Fortin was a poet very connected to his time.
And all that remains very current: it could have been written today.
It shows the hope of mixed youth with a disillusion.
Just a little night will count, like the four previous shows, thirteen
or fourteen musical pieces. A particularity this year is that instead
of following a character, because we want to bathe in the soul of the
group, we will follow a symbolic. Throughout the show, there will be a
jacket and a pair of boots on stage and all the people in the
production will end up wearing them in each of the numbers. The soul
and the spirit will be present without there being a personification
of the members of the group.
The remaining members of the training were contacted and some of them
agreed to feed the designers thoughts. We told them they cannot
dictate their own homage, says Jean-Guy Legault. We give them a
present then, they had to agree to unpack it only during the first
one. I can say that trust is well established. They have an idea of
the direction we are taking, but like the spectators, they will have
surprises.
{ SOURCE: Le Nouvelliste | https://goo.gl/FykM8n }
-------------------------------------------------------
Juste une ptite nuite, Hommage to Les Colocs
{Mar.13.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
(Translated from the original French via Google Translate)
Just a little night: this is how the fourth show of the Cirque du
Soleil tribute series will be entitled, this time dedicated to the
group Les Colocs.
The scenario of this fourth opus will take the viewer into a typical
Montreal universe: In the heart of a dilapidated alley, a gang of
eclectic dysfunctional friends gather every night under the twilight
of a lamp post to explode urban greyness, says 45 Degrees.
Its a bit like Les Colocs: very hard lyrics, very impactful, but
with a very festive music, adds the director Jean-Guy Legault. We
will play a lot on these contrasts.
This is a big alley party that we will do with the spectators.
The voice of Dédé Fortin honored
This time, the musical frame of the show will be created from the
bands original tapes. It is therefore the voice of Dédé Fortin that
will resonate in the Amphitheater Cogeco, rather than those of
different performers as was the case for the Stone show, in homage to
Luc Plamondon.
The interest is that it is a particular voice, notes Jean-Guy
Legault. The fact that it was sung by him, it was a bit of self. To
have the breath, the reality of the author, it has a resonance of that
time, and it has a very current resonance too.
In addition, the soundtrack will be intertwined with a live musical
performance.
The show created and produced by 45 Degrees will be presented for 20
nights from July 18 to August 18 at the Cogeco Amphitheater in Trois-
Rivières.
{ SOURCE: Radio-Canada | https://goo.gl/oxprpX }
-------------------------------------------------------
MK2 Acquires Four Cirque du Soleil VR Experiences
{Mar.21.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
Paris-based MK2 has acquired sales and distribution rights to four
Cirque du Soleil virtual-reality experiences co-produced by leading
Canadian VR banner Felix & Paul Studios and the multimedia production
unit Cirque du Soleil Images. The deal was made for location-based
rights, which entails sales and distribution to physical venues.
The four VR experiences are Inside the Box of Kurios, which won the
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Media; KÀ The Battle
Within, which was featured in Torontos Cutting Edge Pop VR section;
Dreams of O, winner of SXSWs Outstanding Technical Achievement
Award; and the newest production, Through the Masks of Luzia, which
was recently nominated for a Canadian Screen Award in the Best
Immersive Experience category.
MK2, which already runs a major arthouse distribution network in
Paris, will release all four experiences at their VR cinema locations
in Paris and across their network of VR Pods, whose first clients
include Scandinavias Nordisk Film and Brazils Arvore.
MK2 will also license the Cirque du Soleil experiences to third-party
VR cinemas and location-based entertainment centers around the world.
Sébastien Ouimet, senior manager of content and distribution
partnerships at Cirque du Soleil, said the alliance with MK2 is a
natural continuation for [Cirque du Soleil] in exploring innovative
ways to offer our virtual-reality experiences to new audiences and in
complementing Cirque du Soleils live-entertainment offerings.
He said that the world-famous performing troupe was constantly
looking for ground-breaking approaches to get off the beaten path and
to build unique worlds that will enhance its audiences journey,
added Ouimet.
After launching one of the first permanent VR facilities in Paris in
2016, MK2 expanded its international sales division to start licensing
international director-driven VR content such as Miyubi, a scripted
comedy created by Felix & Paul Studios.
We are thrilled to pursue our collaboration with VR masters Felix &
Paul Studios and contribute to making these incredibly beautiful and
innovative experiences available to the fast-growing location-based
audience worldwide, says Elisha Karmitz, the general Manager at MK2,
who is currently attending South by Southwest.
Karmitz said that the idea behind these diverse VR initiatives is to
build a chain of rights for distributors and improve their access to
VR content through festivals, VR-dedicated facilities and digital
platforms.
{ SOURCE: Variety | https://goo.gl/AfBxMt }
-------------------------------------------------------
45 DEGREES: Dubai World Cup blooms with festive spirit
{Apr.01.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
Acrobats, fireworks and a stunning ceremony choreographed by the team
behind Cirque du Soleil brought the grandiose to the Dubai World Cup
this year. The opening and closing ceremonies at the show-stopping
event at the Meydan Racecourse saw 70 performers take to the stage to
put on a breathtaking performance.
The live action light and sound show saw 28 acrobats and 42 dancers
from over all over the world take part, wearing 70 hand-made costumes,
while performing on an 86-metre long moving stage that weighed more
than 170 tonnes.
Both ceremonies were produced by 45 Degrees, a Cirque du Soleil
company.
We developed an entirely new concept for the performance based on the
theme Make the Desert Bloom, said Fernand Rainville, the creative and
show director at 45 Degrees. The show was brimming with immersive
innovations designed for mass visibility, including the moving stage.
A laser and special effects show was projected onto the grandstand and
Meydan Hotel, even as flamethrowers enthralled the crowds, backed by a
pyrotechnic drone show, along with giant heliosphere balloons carrying
aerialists more than 40 metres in the air as they were illuminated by
10,000 confetti petals.
Yasmine Khalil, the president of the events and special projects
company, said: We are honoured to have been selected to create and
produce the ceremonies at this prestigious event. It has been a great
privilege to work hand-in-hand with the organising committee of Dubai
World Cup, who each year have continued to set the bar higher.
FESTIVE ATMOSPHERE
While the entertainment had the cameras flashing, the festive
atmosphere at the Dubai World Cup was not limited to this alone.
Musical performances, stilt walkers, BMX riders and the fashion A-game
was in full display. I come every year for the World Cup. I love the
races, said Liza Georgia, a tourist with bright blue hair, visiting
from Australia.
Whether people were at the event to watch the races, participate in
the Style Stakes competition, or simply there to watch the incredible
line-up of live entertainment, no one was left disappointed. The
entrance of the Meydan grandstand saw live performers including
acrobats, drummers, clowns and more. Children were kept entertained
with mimes running around and acting out stories. BMX riders dressed
up in horse costumes rode around the lobby area and bounced around the
back wheel of their bikes.
Inside the grandstand, a total of 118 horses and jockeys took to the
track, as crowds cheered for their favourite to win. As each horse
neared closer to the finish line, the crowds screamed in unison. The
energy from the stands was contagious. Every time a horse would swoosh
past us, everyone would stand up and yell, said Hana Magdi, a young
woman watching from the stands.
The fashion was also one of the main forms of entertainment at the
event. Everywhere you look, there is a fascinating hat or ensemble to
catch your eye said Hiba Hani, a young Emirati enjoying the outlook
from the Apron Views.
Geraldine Asim-Ita, who came from Nigeria, enjoyed some of the perks
offered at Apron Views including neck massages, manicures and express
blow dries to keep her look fresh for the whole day. I just want to
look different. I came from Nigeria specifically for the World Cup and
Im here to enjoy it and get pampered, she said.
CHECK OUT THE POST ONLINE FOR PICTURES:
LINK /// < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?p=11460 >
{ SOURCE: Gulf News }
-------------------------------------------------------
Cirque Brings Clowns After Midnight to Vegas Theatre
{Apr.03.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
Clowns are a necessity. Cirque du Soleils Las Vegas productions may
not make you think of a traditional circus, but there are clowns in
most of these shows and their role is essential.
For example, in the sexy, adult-oriented Zumanity, there is Izzy, an
over-the-top personality who performs a routine that feels like a
late-night infomercial. The product? Scotch baggies, a makeshift
breast implant that doubles as a convenient cocktail.
I think the clowns at Zumanity offer a time for the crowd to
breathe, relax and laugh, says Shannan Calcutt, who created the
character and performs as Izzy. She joined Cirque du Soleil in 2005
shortly before moving to Las Vegas from Vancouver. Zumanity is a
sexy show. You see extraordinary artists with bodies of true
perfection and while I think its awe-inspiring, it can also be
intimidating. We dont all look like that, move like that, walk like
that. The clowns come out and flaunt their flaws so the audience can
forget their own.
Calcutt started developing her clown Izzy at the DellArte
International School of Physical Theatre in 1998 and performed as Izzy
for the first time at the Ottawa Fringe Festival the following year.
When she joined Zumanity, she adapted the character for the show, so
shes been playing Izzy for 20 years.
The comedic side of Cirque will be on full display at the Clowns After
Midnight performances at the Vegas Theatre Hub this week. The
presentation will showcase 11 Cirque artists none of whom perform as
clowns in 13 acts created during a seven-day workshop series led by
Calcutt, who describes the resulting show as Saturday Night Live
with clowns.
Whats unique about this program is that it features 11 artists that
have all taken three workshops with me. They were hand-selected by
Cirque do Soleils senior artistic director, Pierre Parisien, to go
through the three-level program, which I specifically developed for
this troupe, says Calcutt, who has taught clown and comedy workshops
throughout Canada, Australia and the United States since 2000.
Theyre all working courageously out of their comfort zones. I
couldnt be more proud of them!
The Clowns After Midnight performances began as two sold-out, late-
night soirees, after which Parisien thought the improv clowns should
have another opportunity to perform for a live audience. In comedy,
Calcutt says, the only way to perfect your act is to work it out in
front of a real audience.
Its sink or swim time, she says. So were presenting four more
shows, three late-night and one matinee experience.
Clowns After Midnight will start at 11:59 p.m. April 4, 6 and 7 at the
Vegas Theatre Hub (705 Las Vegas Blvd. North, 702-569-9070). The
Sunday show on April 8 includes a party bus (with Champagne and
clowns) from the Orleans to the show starting at noon. For more
information on all shows, visit vegastheatrehub.com.
{ SOURCE: Las Vegas Sun }
-------------------------------------------------------
Mukhtar Gusengadzhiev Jailed for 22 years, Sex Crimes
{Apr.03.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
Mukhtar Gusengadzhiev, 53, also known as Snake Man, was convicted of
abusing the six underage girls including a relative and the nine-year-
old daughter of a former girlfriend.
The Russian circus actor must also undergo compulsory treatment for
paedophilia, according to reports.
During a search of his flat, police found several videos featuring
child pornography and one of the victims told police that
Gusengadzhiev repeatedly undressed her and touched her intimate body
parts. Law enforcement sources also said that between 2012 and 2015 he
performed violent sexual actions against underage children in and
near Moscow.
Gusengadzhiev, from Moscow, insists he is innocent and says that he
was set up by jealous members of his family who wanted to take over
his apartment. He was supported by 1,500 female fans who signed a
petition claiming that he had been framed. We think that the case was
fully made up
and we demand thorough investigation, said the
petition.
The contortionist lived in a desirable high-rise block of flats one
of Stalins seven sisters skyscrapers in Moscows exclusive
Kotelnicheskaya Embankment. He said a video, which formed a key part
of the evidence against him, was filmed by a nephew who wanted his
elite apartment.
An unnamed friend of Gusengadzhiev, said: He is not guilty in any
part of the things he is being accused of. I am convinced that this is
all lies. Bottom line, there is no evidence that he is guilty, the
investigation was done with brutal mistakes.
The contortionist, a former Cirque du Soleil artist and leading member
of the Federation of Yoga of Russia, had been in police custody since
his arrest in September 2015.
The investigators established that victims of those crimes came from
the families of his friends and relatives, said a statement by the
Russian Investigative Committee.
{ SOURCE: UK Daily Star }
-------------------------------------------------------
Ruby Lewis Will Star in New Marilyn Monroe Musical
{Apr.04.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
While Bombshell, the fictional Marilyn Monroe musical from NBCs
Smash, inches toward the actual stage in a long-gestating development
process, another show exploring the life of the film icon will play
Las Vegas.
Marilyn! The New Musical will play the Paris Theater (in Las Vegas)
beginning May 23 before an official opening June 1. The show features
a book by director Tegan Summer and an original score by Gregory
Nabours, plus additional songs made famous by Monroe.
Ruby Lewis, who starred on Broadway in Cirque du Soleils Paramour,
will take on the title role. The cast will also include Brittney
Bertier as Norma Jeane (depicted in the musical as Monroes ever-
present rival alter ego), Frank Lawson as Charlie, Travis Cloer as
Milton Greene, Chris Fore as Bill Pursel, Randal Keith as Darryl F.
Znuck, Christopher Showerman as Joe DiMaggio, Matthew Tyler as Arthur
Miller, Lindsay Roginski as Jane Russell, Una Eggerts as Jayne
Mansfield, and Chanel Edwards-Frederick as Ella Fitzgerald. Kelley
Jackle will serve as the standby for Marilyn.
A rotation of celebrity guest performers will also appear in various
roles throughout the run.
The production team includes choreographer Ferly Prado, set designer
Matt Steinbrenner, and casting director Michael Donovan.
{ SOURCE: Playbill }
***************************************************************
Q&A -- Quick Chats & Press Interviews
***************************************************************
-------------------------------------------------------
VOLTA's Benjamin Harrison brings M83s score to life
{Mar.01.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
Cirque du Soleil knew that it needed something different as it
designed its new Volta show, and it scored big when Anthony Gonzalez
hopped on board as Voltas musical director and composer. Gonzalez
better known as French-born, L.A.-livin producer M83 was attracted
to Voltas storyline, which, to him, centered around a generation
calling for change (CLs own Scott Harrell thinks Voltas narrative
is one of an individual unfulfilled by fame and fortune, turning his
back on empty celebrity and in search of a more profound and
meaningful life).
Compared to other Cirque productions, the music is like chalk and
cheese, Benjamin Harrison told CL. Cirque wanted to walk away from
its traditional music and create something fresh and new they got
it.
Harrison, 30, is Voltas bandleader. Hes explaining the feel of the
music that propels the production that runs through March 18 under a
big tent at the Tampa Greyhound Track between Bird Street and Waters
Avenue. Harrison, 30, has been with Cirque for five years. He comes
from a musical family and has a music degree from The University of
Adelaides Elder Conservatorium of Music, but he didnt think that
hed be able to make a living in music, so he got a finance degree,
too. Harrison sent an audition tape to Cirque explaining who he is,
and surprisingly got a job offer from Cirque. He started with the
company on the day after he got that finance degree. Hes lived out of
his suitcase ever since thanks to his job with Cirque, which is a
full-time touring gig that gets him back to his hotel at 11 p.m. six
nights a week.
Sometimes well get a Tuesday off, Harrison said after explaining
that Mondays are for rest. I dont own a home or apartment. I have a
some family memorabilia in a storage unit, but Im on the road 12
months out of the year.
He started as a musician on Quidam and then Koozå before becoming
bandleader for Volta where he plays baritone sax and keys as part of a
six-piece band that includes singers, fiddlers, guitarists and
keyboarders from Finland, Austria the U.K. and even Adelaide. Harrison
charted out some of Gonzalez Volta score, but the composer also
provided him with some stems so he could write out parts for the Volta
band. Fans will hear some tracked brass parts, but most of what fans
will hear is created in house.
This score isnt Junk or Hurry Up, Were Dreaming, Harrison
explained, referencing M83s 2016 and 2011 albums. He says Gonzalez
talent on synth still shines in the Volta score, but that its more
like a soundtrack than a narrative.
Its definitely M83, as a fan coming to see it youll love the music,
but its kind of a slight departure from his albums. It is something
new. Its an evolution of him as an artist.
CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING VIDEO:
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/Vk4YxLNnvKs >
{ SOURCE: Creative Loafing | https://goo.gl/cmg54o }
-------------------------------------------------------
Touring With Cirque du Soleil: Sita Bhuller
{Mar.03.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
Whats it like to be on tour with a circus show? How do people land a
job working for Cirque du Soleil? What do they love and hate about
being on tour and what are the challenges? TheatreArtLife caught up
with some of the cast of TORUK The First Flight to find out:
Q. Where are you from and what was your journey that led you to the
circus?
I am from London, England. I did gymnastics as a child and through my
teenage years. Whilst at University, I started performing at LEGOLAND
in an acrobatic stunt show. This was my introduction to performing. I
finished studying whilst training hard on the side and then went
directly to join the creation of The House of Dancing Water by Franco
Dragone.
Q. What is touring life like? What are the good parts? What are the
not so good parts?
I love travelling, seeing beautiful nature in different parts of the
world, feeling like my values and character are challenged by
different cultures and places, meeting new people from different
places, trying to understand their view on the world from where they
stand (literally!). It is a great way to see the world, corners of
countries (and the middle of nowhere) that arent on your bucket list
but you find something beautiful and interesting places to see; the
stuff you may not come across when you are being a tourist travelling
top destinations. In North America, I would always hire a car with a
few friends on a day off and head out of the city, look for National
Parks, small towns and more of a local scene. As you travel, it
becomes more apparent that everywhere can look the same on the
surface; the same shops, structure of a grid city and of course living
in hotel rooms that often look the same. Touring with an arena show is
fast paced. There is no time to settle down anywhere or even unpack
your suitcase; it doesnt seem worth it when packing up again 5 days
later!
Q. What is your role/roles in the show and how have you trained to be
in this role on TORUK The First Flight?
I am a generalist and Artist Coach on TORUK The First Flight. As
Artist Coach, my role involves overseeing the movement, choreography
and blocking of existing artists and acts, and new artists
integrating. At the moment, I am helping create a format in the show
to allow rotation and looking at show load for performers. I also
perform in different acts of the show. The Giant Loom; a mix of high
bar, parkour and partner work, Tipani Poles; a twist on traditional
Chinese poles using automation and setting the poles at different
angles and configurations, The Wall; based on aerial dance on a
harness, we perform acrobatics whilst climbing (and falling) a wall. I
often joke Im a jack of all trades, master of none! I try to be
versatile in my training and skill base. This allows me to be able to
do most things thrown at me by a show or director.
Q. How do you keep yourself performance ready?
During the week, we have regular rehearsals to maintain the show.
Outside of this, I practise yoga (when I dont feel exhausted!) or
find a local studio to go to where ever we are. Sometimes people in
the cast will find a local gymnastics centre to train at. During the
day, I also try to do a bit of cardio, light weights and body weight
training to maintain my strength and physique.
Q. Where has been your favourite location on tour and why?
I really enjoyed California on the North American tour. I spent time
hiking and camping in the National Parks. Yosemite was beautiful.
Mexico was also one of my favourites. I had never travelled there
before. Exploring outside the bustling cities, we came across local
villages and beautiful scenery. It was also overwhelming to perform to
a crowd of 11,000 each night!
Q. If you could have any skill in the world, what would it be?
I wish I could pick up languages quickly and easily to be able to
think in another language. I admire those who do!
Q. Where will you be in 10 years?
I would like to have a home, probably not performing anymore, but
still travelling regularly. Its the golden question
. what do you do
next? Im not sure, I have ideas but creating a solid plan is hard for
me. Maybe because in this industry, you look at life in phases of 6
months to 2 years max because of contracts. 10 years is far away! But
I will unpack ??
Q. Whose role in TORUK do you respect the most and why?
The general artist. I admire all the performers on stage who arent in
a spot light, who run all the time, fill in for obscure parts in the
show, put extra bits in that havent been choreographed but adds
flavour to the show.
Q. What is an essential item in your suitcase on tour?
In North America, it was my Kettle. They seem to often only have
coffee machines??? I must have tea in my room. I also have LED fairy
lights (hotel lighting often sucks). Over the years, everything in my
suitcase has become boring and practical: I have forgotten most of my
fashion, all my clothes can be layered, worn in almost every climate!
Q. Who do you miss the most while on tour?
I miss my family. FaceTime makes it a lot easier to keep in contact,
but you still feel a distance as you arent in their day to day lives.
Q. Who makes you laugh on tour and why?
Lydia Harper. Another Brit, our humour is alike and dressing room
banter is an absolute must!
Q. Describe the biggest challenge you have had on tour.
When you start in a company that is established and has a high
reputation. Sometimes I have come across situations that dont make
sense to me but thats just the way it is. The romantic ideal in my
mind has sometimes been confronted with a different reality. Although
you choose to be here (signing a contract), you often sign a very
vague plan. Dates change, cities change, get cancelled, or you end up
somewhere you never imagined. I have adapted to this challenge by not
making any plans more than 1 month ahead, a difficult strategy when
people outside this touring bubble would like to know.
{ SOURCE: Theater Life | https://goo.gl/fEoDVY }
-------------------------------------------------------
A Day in the Life of Corteos Fred Umali
{Mar.07.2018}
-------------------------------------------------------
What do artists do in their free time? What inspires them in their
everyday life? How do they start their day, tackle their creative
processes, balance work-life, and then unwind all within 24 hours?
Fred Umali is from San Jose, California. He joined Cirque du Soleil in
2004 for the general formation of the show Corteo, which premiered in
2005. He has worked on the creation of Corteo and Viva Elvis.
Umali will perform on tour with Corteo, coming to Houston March 8 11
at the Toyota Center. He is one of the few original cast members
remaining. Corteo was transformed from a Big Tent show to an arena
show in 2016, with new acts added.
Here is how Fred Umali spent February 16, 2018 in Québec City, where
he was preparing Corteo with Cirque du Soleil.
8:00am I like to get up early in the morning if possible. Im very
much a morning person. I like my coffee/tea and a good breakfast to
get my day started. I often eat a couple eggs with maybe toast, bagels
with cream cheese and maybe capers and lox if I can get it. Breakfast
is one of my favorite meals, and I love cooking when I can. Im always
trying new recipes.
When Im home in San Jose, I enjoy spending the mornings getting my
daughter ready for school. Im often away, so I try to get quality
time in when I can. Even the most mundane tasks like getting breakfast
ready and taking her to school are always a pleasure for me.
When I have time to myself in the morning, I often do a bit of
stretching and meditation. Having internal energy is important to me
as physical preparation for performing.
10:00am Trainings usually last an hour or 1 ½ hours. Warm up,
stretching, conditioning, cardio, and weight trainings. Even though I
dont have a specific diet, I like to keep a balanced diet. But I do
love to eat and sample all the local food wherever we travel. Thats
one of my favorite things to do while touring. Im really partial to
Mexican food. When I had the opportunity to tour in Mexico, I was
ecstatic. I think it was in Guadalajara I found a street vendor
doing tacos. I stopped and bought a few, and was blown away by the
simplicity and freshness of the carne asada and salsa. Needless to
say, I went back a few more times before leaving the city.
I believe in my mind that Im an adventurous person. Living is about
taking chances on and off stage. Searching out moments is easier when
youre in beautiful new places that quite possibly you might never get
to see again. I feel after every city on tour, weve only had a taste
of what each one has to offer. Im not sure I can pinpoint one place
that Ive traveled that was most memorable to me, but if I had to
choose a country for an overall experience, I think Id choose Brazil.
Its such a vast and diverse country with so much color and a people
who have a zest for life something you see in how they hold
celebrations (my favorite was spending New Years Eve in Rio de
Janeiro) and the flavors of their food that have been influenced by so
many different immigrants from all corners of the globe.
10:50am When we have rehearsals, it usually requires me about of
hour of basic exercises and conditioning, along with stretching,
before staging acrobatics. I perform in an act called Tournik in
Corteo. It consists of six bars with four arranged in a cube form and
two standing alone at either end of the stage. Along with about nine
other guys in the act, we usually practice individual skills along
with group images that require very precise timing and coordination.
The funnest part of my act is being able to gauge and see the
reactions of the audience when we perform daring and close-call
acrobatics. Seeing the wonder in peoples eyes, as they forget about
daily life for a moment, is a great satisfaction. The most difficult
part of our act is generally feeling in sync with the other guys. We
are all human and have our good and bad days. The challenge to be
there for one another is also what makes us close as a group. We trust
each other.
My mornings are pretty slow, since we usually stay up pretty late
unwinding after shows the night before. The early afternoon consists
of a good lunch and more training whether its staging the show,
training the act, or working out to keep fit and limber. Prior to
showtime, I usually take about an hour or so to do some conditioning
and stretching to prepare myself for the show.
In a nutshell, Corteo is about a Clown who dreams of his funeral. All
the people that pass through life at one time or another are there.
Memories, past close friends, and lovers all mixing and celebrating
his life, hovering somewhere between a dream and the heavens.
I was originally a gymnast (I started gymnastics around age 6), and I
competed nationally and internationally for the U.S. I found circus
when I was living in Australia in 2001. A good friend I made there was
a performer in another show, Saltimbanco, for many years, and he
suggested I audition for Cirque. Before that moment, I had never
considered circus arts and definitely never thought of it as a career.
After a few more years of gymnastics, I decided it was time to take
the next step and try out Cirque. I did a general formation in the
spring/summer of 2004 and was finally offered a contract for the
creation of Corteo near the end of the training. I found a love for
the circus that I didnt know Id find. The people and performing are
so different from sport. I believed I found a place that would nurture
my acrobatic prowess and flair for the drama of stage.
5:10pm Getting ready for the show is a routine. I come to work,
maybe have a small meal or snack, and put my makeup on (usually takes
me about 20 30 mins while listening to music). I listen to many
different types of music depending on my mood, and I love picking
random stations on Spotify to discover new music. But I mostly listen
to Electronic, RnB, Rap, Acoustic, and Latin.
I organize my preset (costumes and such), then start a warm up of
active stretching, mixed with some conditioning exercises. Put on my
first costume and get ready to do a show. Pre-show rituals usually
involve a lot of personal handshakes/hugs/besos with friends and
wishing colleagues a safe show. The show begins, nervous energy and
all.
8:55pm No audience in the rehearsal tonight, aside from the director
and technical staff. The show went well. All things technical and
acrobatic went well, considering a lot of this production is still new
for many artists and production staff. All normal for a creation
process. Post-show I rehydrate with some water, and then begin the
process of returning costumes and removing makeup.
Performing in Corteo is an interesting experience. Everyday has a life
of its own. And I believe thats the way creator Daniele Finza Pasca
envisioned it. For me, this is such a liberating feeling. Being able
to perform within a form created in his mind and to adapt that moment
to my ever-changing environment is a rewarding challenge. As for
getting nervous, yes I still do feel butterflies in the stomach
before I go onstage. Yet, over the years Ive been able to use this
energy to inspire my performance.
Working as an artist in a community like Cirque is an experience that
I will live for as long as I can. It is truly different than any other
job Ive had and the romance of running away with the circus is a
well-founded notion. Together we work, play, live, love, laugh, and go
through lifes pain on and off-stage together. You make friends you
never believed you would have made otherwise, and you soon get used to
saying hello and goodbye to people and places often. You get a bit
numb to it, but in the back of your head you think, this is truly a
small world and often youll run in to the same beautiful people
again.
Being an artist on stage with this show has taught me immeasurable
things about who I am as a person. Ive grown so much since Ive
joined this company. Ive realized things about my life and my
personality that I could have only found by being exposed and
vulnerable on a stage with hundreds of eyes watching. Some may find
being in that situation intimidating, but when I perform, its
liberating and peaceful and fills me with a chorus of emotions not
many experiences in life could bring. Im happiest there, and I truly
couldnt ask more of a job.
{ SOURCE: Houston Public Media | https://goo.gl/nVudm9 }
=======================================================================
ITINÉRAIRE -- TOUR/SHOW INFORMATION
=======================================================================
o) BIGTOP - Under the Grand Chapiteau
{Amaluna, Koozå, Kurios, Luzia, Totem & Volta}
o) ARENA - In Stadium-like venues
{TORUK, OVO, Séptimo Día, Crystal & Corteo}
o) RESIDENT - Performed en Le Théâtre
{Mystère, "O", Zumanity, KÀ, LOVE, MJ ONE & JOYA}
NOTE:
.) While we make every effort to provide complete and accurate
touring dates and locations available, the information in
this section is subject to change without notice. As such,
the Fascination! Newsletter does not accept responsibility
for the accuracy of these listings.
For current, up-to-the-moment information on Cirque's whereabouts,
please visit Cirque's website: < http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/ >,
or for a more comprehensive tour listing, visit our Itinéraire
section online at: < http://www.cirquefascination.com/?page_id=6898 >.
------------------------------------
BIGTOP - Under the Grand Chapiteau
------------------------------------
Amaluna:
Buenos Aires, AR -- Mar 15, 2018 to Apr 15, 2018
Cordoba, AR -- Apr 26, 2018 to May 6, 2018
Santiago, CL -- May 31, 2018 to Jun 22, 2018
Lima, PE -- Jul 22, 2018 to Aug 12, 2018
Quito, EC -- Sep 6, 2018 to Sep 16, 2018
Koozå:
Hong Kong, CN -- Apr 19, 2018 to Jun 3, 2018
Kurios:
Tokyo, JP -- Feb 7, 2018 to Jun 3, 2018
Osaka, JP -- Jul 26, 2018 to Oct 29, 2018
Nagoya, JP -- Nov 22, 2018 to Jan 27, 2019
Fukuoka, JP -- Feb 15, 2018 to Mar 31, 2018
Sendai, JP -- April 2019
Luzia:
Washington, DC -- Apr 12, 2018 to Jun 17, 2018
Boston, MA -- Jun 27, 2018 to Jul 29, 2018
Guadalajara, MX -- TBA 2018
Monterrey, MX -- TBA 2018
Mexico City, MX -- TBA 2018
Totem:
Barcelona, ES -- Mar 23, 2018 to May 20, 2018
Malaga, ES -- Jun 1, 2018 to Jul 1, 2018
Alicante, ES -- Jul 20, 2018 to Aug 19, 2018
Zurich, CH -- Sep 5, 2018 to Oct 14, 2018
Paris, FR -- Oct 15, 2018 to Dec 2, 2018
VOLTA:
East Rutherford, NJ -- Apr 19, 2018 to May 6, 2018
Uniondale, NY -- May 17, 2018 to Jun 10, 2018
Oaks, PA -- Jul 12, 2018 to Aug 5, 2018
Seattle, WA -- TBA 2018
San Francisco, CA -- TBA 2018/2019
------------------------------------
ARENA - In Stadium-Like Venues
------------------------------------
TORUK - The First Flight:
Sanya, CN -- Feb 1, 2018 to May 1, 2018
Singapore -- May 24, 2018 to Jun 3, 2018
Bangkok, TH -- Jun 14, 2018 to Jun 24, 2018
Cologne, DE -- Oct 25, 2018 to Oct 28, 2018
Hamburg, DE -- Oct 31, 2018 to Nov 4, 2018
Berlin, DE -- Nov 7, 2018 to Nov 11, 2018
Turin, IT -- Nov 15, 2018 to Nov 18, 2018
Bologna, IT -- Nov 22, 2018 to Nov 25, 2018
Frankfurt, DE -- Nov 28, 2018 to Dec 2, 2018
Zagreb, HR -- Dec 7, 2018 to Dec 9, 2018
Pamplona, ES -- Feb 6, 2019 to Feb 10, 2019
Munich, DE -- Jun 5, 2019 to Jun 9, 2019
OVO:
Oberhausen, DE -- Apr 5, 2018 to Apr 8, 2018
Krakow, PL -- Apr 13, 2018 to Apr 15, 2018
Gdansk, PL -- Apr 19, 2018 to Apr 22, 2018
Saint Petersburg, RU -- Apr 28, 2018 to May 5, 2018
Moscow, RU -- May 8, 2018 to May 20, 2018
Kazan, RU -- May 23, 2018 to May 27, 2018
Tolyatti, RU -- May 30, 2018 to Jun 3, 2018
Ekaterinburg, RU -- Jun 6, 2018 to Jun 10, 2018
Sochi, RU -- Jul 12, 2018 to Jul 29, 2018
Liverpool, UK -- Aug 16, 2018 to Aug 19, 2018
Sheffield, UK -- Aug 22, 2018 to Aug 26, 2018
Newcastle, UK -- Aug 29, 2018 to Sep 2, 2018
Glasgow, UK -- Sep 5, 2018 to Sep 9, 2018
Nottingham, UK -- Sep 12, 2018 to Sep 16, 2018
Leeds, UK -- Sep 19, 2018 to Sep 23, 2018
Manchester, UK -- Sep 26, 2018 to Sep 30, 2018
Birmingham, UK -- Oct 3, 2018 to Oct 7, 2018
Dublin, IE -- Oct 10, 2018 to Oct 14, 2018
Belfast, IE -- Oct 17, 2018 to Oct 21, 2018
Lille, FR -- Nov 8, 2018 to Nov 11, 2018
Bordeaux, FR -- Nov 14, 2018 to Nov 18, 2018
Toulouse, FR -- Nov 21, 2018 to Nov 25, 2018
Montpellier, FR -- Nov 28, 2018 to Dec 2, 2018
Strasbourg, FR -- Dec 5, 2018 to Dec 9, 2018
Nantes, FR -- Dec 12, 2018 to Dec 16, 2018
A Coruna, ES -- Dec 21, 2018 to Dec 30, 2018
SÉPTIMO DÍA - NO DESCANSARÉ:
Coral Gables, FL (Miami) -- Apr 18, 2018 to Apr 22, 2018
Inglewood, CA (Los Angeles) -- May 3, 2018 to May 6, 2018
Asuncion, PY -- Jun 20, 2018 to Jun 23, 2018
CRYSTAL - A BREAKTHROUGH ICE EXPERIENCE:
Portland, OR -- Apr 4, 2018 to Apr 8, 2018
Abbotsford, BC -- Apr 11, 2018 to Apr 15, 2018
Penticton, BC -- Apr 18, 2018 to Apr 22, 2018
Prince George, BC -- Apr 25, 2018 to Apr 29, 2018
Spokane, WA -- May 2, 2018 to May 6, 2018
Red Deer, AB -- May 2, 2018 to May 6, 2018
Saskatoon, SK -- May 16, 2018 to May 20, 2018
Medicine Hat, AB -- May 23, 2018 to May 27, 2018
London, ON -- Jun 14, 2018 to Jun 17, 2018
Hamilton, ON -- Jun 20, 2018 to Jun 24, 2018
Youngstown, OH -- Jun 27, 2018 to Jul 1, 2018
Baltimore, MD -- Jul 5, 2018 to Jul 8, 2018
Estero, FL -- Jul 12, 2018 to Jul 15, 2018
Sunrise, FL -- Jul 18, 2018 to Jul 29, 2018
Orlando, FL -- Aug 1, 2018 to Aug 5, 2018
Greenville, SC -- Aug 8, 2018 to Aug 12, 2018
Raleigh, NC -- Aug 15, 2018 to Aug 19, 2018
Greensboro, NC -- Aug 22, 2018 to Aug 26, 2018
Hershey, PA -- Aug 29, 2018 to Sep 2, 2018
CORTEO:
Rockford, IL -- Apr 5, 2018 to Apr 8, 2018
Columbus, OH -- Apr 12, 2018 to Apr 15, 2018
Knoxville, TN -- Apr 19, 2018 to Apr 22, 2018
Lexington, KY -- Apr 27, 2018 to Apr 29, 2018
Cincinnati, OH -- May 3, 2018 to May 6, 2018
Chattanooga, TN -- May 10, 2018 to May 13, 2018
Lincoln, NE -- May 17, 2018 to May 20, 2018
Broomfield, CO -- May 24, 2018 to May 27, 2018
Loveland, CO -- May 31, 2018 to Jun 3, 2018
Oshawn, ON -- Jun 21, 2018 to Jun 24, 2018
Ottawa, ON -- Jun 27, 2018 to Jul 1, 2018
Kingston, ON -- Jul 4, 2018 to Jul 8, 2018
Saint Catharines, ON -- Jul 11, 2018 to Jul 15, 2018
Bridgeport, CT -- Jul 18, 2018 to Jul 22, 2018
Nashville, TN -- Jul 26, 2018 to Jul 29, 2018
Charlotte, NC -- Aug 8, 2018 to Aug 12, 2018
Louisville, KY -- Aug 15, 2018 to Aug 19, 2018
Indianapolis, IN -- Aug 22, 2018 to Aug 26, 2018
Quebec City, QC -- Dec 6, 2018 to Dec 9, 2018
Montreal, QC -- Dec 19, 2018 to Dec 30, 2018
---------------------------------
RESIDENT - en Le Théâtre
---------------------------------
Mystère:
Location: Treasure Island, Las Vegas (USA)
Performs: Saturday through Wednesday, Dark: Thursday/Friday
Two shows Nightly - 7:00pm & 9:30pm
Extra Performance Dates:
o Mon, Dec 31, 2018 | 4:30 p.m. & 7:00 p.m.
Single Show Dates (7:00pm Only):
o Sunday, May 20, 2018
o Thursday, May 24, 2018
o Monday, Nov. 26, 2018
o Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018
2018 Dark Dates:
o Wednesday, Apr 11, 2018
o June 2 - June 6, 2018
o Saturday, Sep 29, 2018
o October 27 - 31, 2018
"O":
Location: Bellagio, Las Vegas (USA)
Performs: Wednesday through Sunday, Dark: Monday/Tuesday
Two shows Nightly - 7:30pm and 9:30pm
Special Performance Dates:
o Tue, Jul 17 - 7:00pm & 9:30pm
o Tue, Oct 09 - 7:00pm & 9:30pm
o Tue, Dec 11 - 9:30pm only
o Mon, Dec 31 - 4:00pm & 6:30pm
2018 Dark Dates:
o June 2 & 3
o August 6 - 14
o September 16
o November 26 - December 11
o December 27
Zumanity:
Location: New York-New York, Las Vegas (USA)
Performs: Tuesday through Saturday, Dark Sunday/Monday
Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm
KÀ:
Location: MGM Grand, Las Vegas (USA)
Performs: Saturday through Wednesday, Dark Thursday/Friday
Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm
LOVE:
Location: Mirage, Las Vegas (USA)
Performs: Thursday through Monday, Dark: Tuesday/Wednesday
Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm
MICHAEL JACKSON ONE:
Location: Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas (USA)
Performs: Two Shows Nightly - Dark: Wednesday/Thursday
Two Shows Nightly - 7:00pm and 9:30pm
JOYÀ:
Location: Riviera Maya, Mexico
Performs: Tuesday through Saturday, Dark: Sunday/Monday
One/Two Shows Nightly:
9:00pm (Weekdays)
7:00pm & 10:15pm (Fri, Sat & Holidays)
=======================================================================
OUTREACH - UPDATES FROM CIRQUE's SOCIAL WIDGETS
=======================================================================
o) WEBSERIES -- Official Online Featurettes
o) VIDEOS -- Official Peeks & Noted Fan Finds
---------------------------------------------------
WEBSERIES: Official Online Featurettes
---------------------------------------------------
*) CIRQUE IT OUT
Hosted by Gold & Silver Medalist 2016 Olympics - Artistic Gymnastics,
Winner of 'Dancing With the Stars' Season 23, NY Times Best Seller
- Laurie Hernandez. Tune in and follow along with us every week as
we go through different workouts with Cirque du Soleil athletes and
their coaches.
o) EPISODE 1 - 'O' Fire Artist Laurie Hernandez {Mar.07}
In this first episode, we are basing our workout on a skill you
might not expect: fire manipulation. Our guest artist is Junior
from the show 'O' with the guidance of Conditioning Specialist,
Leland Barker. He is going to take us on a general physical
preparation workout that consists of squats, hinges, pushups,
pulls,and core work.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/ksp0MayCMYs >
o) EPISODE 2 - Pole Dancer Workout from Michael Jackson ONE
In this second episode of "Cirque It Out", we are basing our
workout on the skills required to perform on the pole. Our guest
artists are pole dancer Jenny Driebe from the show 'Michael
Jackson ONE' and Cirque du Soleil's Performance Conditioning
Specialist, Matt Miller. They take us on a general physical
preparation workout that consists of upper and lower extremity
strength, a tremendous support from the core. The main goal is
to challenge pushing and pulling movements while incorporating
midline strength.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/w1D5yMylHy8 >
o) EPISODE 3 - 12-Minute Workout with Laurie Hernandez {Mar.28}
In Episode #3 of our NEW Fitness Series, CIRQUE IT OUT, learn
how to work out the #CirqueWay with Jordan Drew, the dancer who
plays the Eleanor Rigby character from The Beatles LOVE by Cirque
du Soleil. Laurie Hernandez also joins along in the workouts led
by Ridge Kiley, a Cirque du Soleil Performance Conditioning
Specialist.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/tlTqItqorCE >
o) EPISODE 4 - Quick Gym Workouts with LUZIA Artists {Apr.04}
In Episode #4 of our Fitness Series, CIRQUE IT OUT, learn how to
work on your leg lifts and chin-ups the Cirque Way with 2 LUZIA
artists: Kelly McDonald - Adagio Flyer, and Shelli Epstein -
Running Woman & Swing Flyer.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/jBjKbBjm18c >
*) ASK CIRQUE!
ASK CIRQUE! is a BRAND NEW SERIES that will take fans backstage
and behind the scenes of all Cirque du Soleil Shows. However,
this series is different from all of Cirque's other behind the
scenes videos - because YOU, the audience, rule the show! What
questions have you always wanted answered? Now is your chance!
Comment on any social media platform and tag #AskCirque. What
are you waiting for? Join the hosts Fabienne Daigle and Carla
Sifoni (CDS Content and Social Media advisors)... they are
ready to answer!
o) EPISODE 6 {Mar.05}
1. Carla Sifoni & Fabienne Daigle - Global Social Media team members
2. Abou Traore LUZIA Artist
3. Sabrina Aganier Sep7imo Dia Artist
4. Samuel Roy Cirque du Soleil Talent Scout
5. Vitor Silva Dos Santos KA Artist
6. Zack Del Campo LOVE Artist
7. Eleni Uranis Cirque du Solel Makeup Artist
8. Philippe Belanger VOLTA Artist
9. Nicolas Jelmoni JOYA Artist
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/ED75HcClbg0 >
o) EPISODE 7 {Mar.12}
1. Janel Santos Digital Media Manager - Resident Shows
2. Jamie Helmick - Director of Digital Strategy - Resident Shows
3. Vitor Silva Dos Santos KA Artist
4. Jordan Drew - LOVE Artist
5. Nicole Fox - Manager - Talent Operations
6. Leon Kupfershmid - Talent Scout
7. Pauline Deschamps - Coordinator - Community Relations
8. Bill May - 'O' Artist
9. Lou D'Angeli - Vice-President of Marketing and PR - Resident Shows
10. Araz Hamzayev - Zumanity Artist
11. Dima Shine - Zumanity Artist
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/BWGoAwHbMCE >
*) DUELING MASTERS
Russian Standard & Cirque du Soleil have teamed up on common
ground, showcasing the skills required to be the world's
fastest! Who will win? The Bartender or the Juggler?
o) EPISODE 1: Kurios Juggler, Part 1 {Feb.22}
< https://youtu.be/Nn_d3weXh-4 >
o) EPISODE 2: Kurios Juggler, Part 2 {Mar.01}
< https://youtu.be/gYmafIkivbM >
o) EPISODE 3: Luzia Juggler, Part 1 {Mar.09}
< https://youtu.be/JgE_4Aus1_8 >
o) EPISODE 4: Luzia Juggler, Part 2 {Mar.15}
< https://youtu.be/ifY5IQiW5GY >
*) BEHIND THE CORTEO REMOUNT
Corteo first premiered in Montreal in 2005 and has visited more
than 60 cities in 19 different countries as a Big Top show before
transforming into an arena show in 2018.
o) EPISODE 1: Two New Acts! {Mar.29}
In the remount process, from the Big tent to the arena, these
new acts have been added: Suspended Pole & Hoops! Discover
how we came up with these 2 new fascinating additions.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/M3nk5WEi9v8 >
o) EPISODE 2: Behind the Captivating Characters {Apr.06}
In the remount process, from the Big tent to the arena, many
of the artists are back, while others are excited to be
joining the show for the first time!
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/M3nk5WEi9v8 >
*) MUSIC VIDEO w/LYRICS
o) Zumanity - "Perfect Jam" {Feb.13}
If you call me,
Ill be at the show tonight
Ill dance for you
Ill play, love, come back to me
Us, yes, us, yes
Good,
Good
The perfect jam!
Were the perfect jam, baby!
Infinitely good
Good (x5)
Us, yes
If you call me,
Ill be at the show tonight
Ill dance for you
Ill play, love...
Come back to me!
Perfect jam!
Perfect jam!
Spread your wings
Touch my stars
Im infinitely good for you
Infinitely good with you
Infinitely big plus, too
Perfect jam!
Perfect jam!
Spread your wings
Touch my stars
Im infinitely good for you
Infinitely good with you
The perfect jam,
The perfect jam!
Im infinitely good for you
Infinitely good with you
Good (x5)
If you, perfect jam
Us, perfect jam
Yes, perfect jam
If you call me,
Ill be at the show tonight
Ill dance for you
Ill play, love, come back to me
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/6pEuRg4Uens >
---------------------------------------------------
VIDEOS: Official Peeks & Noted Fan Finds
---------------------------------------------------
*) GLIDING HIGHER - THE FINAL EPISODE {Mar.26}
"Gliding Higher" is our backstage behind-the-scenes YouTube series
with our NEWEST show CRYSTAL! Discover a world of ice, figure
skating, and of course Cirque du Soleil. In this episode, watch
all the hard work from the previous episodes come together and
follow the incredible journey to the World Premiere in Montreal,
Canada.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/X6yYh-qgjYQ >
*) CIRQUE STORIES - EPISODE 6: Miguel Vazquez {Mar.16}
Who is Miguel Vazquez? Only a legend in the Cirque Community.
Miguel is the first technician we highlight in our series and is
currently a rigger on MJONE. What makes Miguel's story so remarkable
is that he was once a trapeze artist. Born and raised in a circus
family, Miguel's career involved performing and breaking a World
Record! Listen to his journey from performing to going behind-the-
scenes in this week's episode of Cirque Stories.
LINK /// < https://youtu.be/kV8cUSkW3hI >
*) OTHER CIRQUE VIDEOS
o) AMALUNA: Make-up and Costumes
https://www.facebook.com/Amaluna/videos/1841238285937462/
o) AMALUNA: Meet Cyr Wheel Specialist, Oscar
https://www.facebook.com/Amaluna/videos/1863100230417934/
o) CORTEO: Costume Challenges
https://www.facebook.com/CirqueduSoleil/videos/10155261199221179/
o) CORTEO: Parade in Jackson Square, New Orleans
https://www.facebook.com/Corteo/videos/10155268610201179/
o) CORTEO: From the Arena Premiere
https://www.facebook.com/CirqueduSoleil/videos/10157330710802501/
o) CORTEO: New Hula Hoop Act
o) CORTEO: Get to know Sante Fortunato, Hula Hoop Performers
https://www.facebook.com/Corteo/videos/10155275380061179/
https://www.facebook.com/Corteo/videos/10155266290141179/
o) CORTEO: Get to Know Stephanie Ortega, New Suspended Pole Act
https://www.facebook.com/Corteo/videos/10155275900376179/
https://www.facebook.com/Corteo/videos/10155275966136179/
o) KOOZA: Premiere in Shenzhen, China
https://www.facebook.com/kooza/videos/10155678242006339/
o) LUZIA: Video of Football Freestyler Laura Biondo
https://www.facebook.com/LUZIAbyCirqueduSoleil/videos/1930606197252202/
o) MJ ONE: Meet Wig Technician, Jakey Hicks
https://www.facebook.com/MJONE/videos/1609523425821655/
o) TORUK: See the special setup in Sanyachen, Hainan, China
https://www.facebook.com/torukthefirstflight/videos/2349523998406891/
o) CIRQUE: Celebrating International Women's Day
https://www.facebook.com/Amaluna/videos/10157351941037501/
=======================================================================
FASCINATION! FEATURES
=======================================================================
o) VOLTA: "A TECHINCAL BOX OF WONDERS"
Part 1 of 2: Elemental Design
A Special Reprint from Lighting & Sound America
o) "We're Off and Running - A Series of Classic Critiques"
Part 12 of 16: Dralion, Part 1 (1999-2001)
By: Ricky Russo - Atlanta, Georgia (USA)
------------------------------------------------------------
VOLTA: "A TECHNICAL BOX OF WONDERS"
Part 1 of 2: Elemental Design
A Special Reprint from Lighting & Sound America
------------------------------------------------------------
True to its name, VoltaCirque du Soleil's newest, brightest touring
showis supercharged, crackling with energy, and, at times, shocking.
A coming-out fable articulated through a series of electrifying
physical performances and poignant choreography, Volta is bathed in
light and luminous, luxurious imagery. Up to 80 layers of video and
multimedia visuals, much of them generated in real time in response to
live music cues, soundscape, and lighting design, paint a neo-Baroque
fantasy world for three distinct strata of humanity.
Volta's central narrative device, Quid Pro Quo, is a TV talent show-
within-the-show. Presiding as host of Quid Pro Quo, is Waz, a
conflicted young man born with a head of blue feathers in place of
hair. Growing up, he was bullied for being different; he now hides
this part of himself under a helmet. But that is about to change, as
Volta opens with Quid Pro Quo's 1,000th episode.
Contestants will be chosen from among the Greys, who, dressed
monochromatically in costumes resembling newspapers, march dutifully
through life in lockstep with one another, eyes fixed on their eerily
incandescent cellphones. Quid Pro Quo's winnersthe challenge is a
vigorous ropeskipping contestget to join the Elites, signifying their
newly elevated status via a wardrobe upgrade to the Elites' gold and
black.
Entering down the center aisle dressed in golden dragon scales, Waz is
the ultimate Elite. As he approaches the stage, he erupts in myriad
dazzling beams of light, courtesy of 168 red lasers sewn into his
coat, along with 90m of wiring. The lasers and their reflections
amplify the magnificent radiance that, for Waz, only masks the
emptiness he feels inside.
Dressed in complex, richly colored macramé and crocheted outfits
evocative of various indigenous cultures, the third group, the Free
Spirits, embrace life fearlessly, largely through daring feats of
athletic and acrobatic prowess that demonstrate their consummate skill
at extreme sports, such as parkour and BMX, that comprise the bulk of
the show. It is they who guide Waz to freedom and personal fulfillment
outside the confines of Quid Pro Quo, cheering him on and him openly
celebrating his blue feathered coif.
Like almost all Cirque du Soleil touring show, Volta is staged as
theatre-in-the-round under the Grand Chapiteau, the big top that
recalls the company's early days in Québec. Measuring 167' in
diameter, it stands almost 57' high and is supported by four central
masts, each 80' tall. A wall and supplementary upstage decking,
directly behind the 41' diameter stage, displace about one-quarter of
the usual 2,600 seats, limiting capacity to 2,000 in a 240° arc around
the stage and transforming it into more of a thrust.
A 5,000lb open-frame bridge, spanning the rear of the stage, glides up
and down on vertical tracks mounted on the two upstage masts and
serves as an additional staging and rigging platform. The Sky Grid,
suspended from the four masts directly above the center of the stage,
is accessible from a catwalk running from the upstage-left mast.
"Volta has the largest stage area and the most set pieces we've ever
built for any of our big top shows," says touring head of lighting
Simon Fox, who also notes that numerous pieces of scenery are stacked
in storage pockets in the upstage wall, ready to be deployed. As in
all Cirque productions, performers, rather than stagehands, set up and
strike each scene, which, along with the wall-to-wall score, keeps the
audience engaged during scene changes and drives the show forward.
At each stop on a tour, it takes eight days for a crew of 80 to set up
the 1,200 tons of tents, equipment, and staging hauled in 61 tractor-
trailers from one location to the next. In addition to the big top,
the inventory includes smaller tents for the artists, the main
entrance, box office, concessions, dining room, and the Tapis Rouge, a
red-carpet venue that holds up to 250 VIP guests. The canvas alone
weighs 11,500lb. Several trailers remain on site during the run of the
show to provide space for workshops, the kitchen, and sanitary
facilities. The big top, artists' tent, and Tapis Rouge tent are all
climate-controlled. The show includes 46 performers, 23 show
technicians, and 12 site technicians who look after the tents,
plumbing, and other elements of the infrastructure.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
-----------------
The physics of the big top subjected the production design to a unique
set of logistical constraints: extremely tight space, priority on the
grid given to acrobatic rigging and performer flying, and strict
weight limits, dictating the type and amount of equipment that can be
hung on the masts. For the production designer Bruce Rodgers, who, for
the past 11 years, has enjoyed the luxury of an entire NFL football
field to stage Super Bowl halftime spectacles, these limitations
opened up a new world of possibilities.
"After a two-year design process with Cirque du Soleil, you really
learn a new way to approach things," Rodgers says. "I'm approaching my
rock concert design, my television, even the Super Bowl differently
based on what I learned from those guys."
Rodgers had an opportunity to pivot from the gargantuan scale of the
Super Bowl to a more compact circus staging when he was called on by
Cirque du Soleil's special-events division, 45 Degrees, to design the
opening ceremony for the 2015 Pan American Games, helmed by the same
creative duo behind Volta: the writer and director Bastien Alexandre
and the creative director Jean Guibert. "While essentially a Cirque
show, [the Pan America project] was different in that the stage was
comparatively massive," Rodgers says. "In fact, it was probably the
biggest thing physically that the Cirque had ever done. When they
called me after PanAm and said they wanted me for this project, we
studied the 20 big top shows that Cirque had already created, and saw
that every one of them had held all the action within the confines of
the 41'-diameter deck. We began working together in a small room that
was painted black, so we could use chalk to sketch out ideas on the
walls; we spent three weeks sketching various ways to solve the puzzle
of the deck."
Much more scenery had been envisaged for Volta than for past big top
shows, necessitating new offstage storage space. The puzzle was
solved, Rodgers says, by adding "a scenic wall or a scrim or
structural wall that would take up some of the 360° where there would
be no seats, and we would hide scenery behind it. Then we pushed that
wall 30' further back to give us more performance space to deepen the
presentation, even though that left us with less space backstage. A
lot of work over two years went into the design of that wall."
Some scenic pieces, including metal parkour frames and six large
polycarbonate BMX bike ramps, are constructed to fit inside each
other, in the manner of Russian dolls, for more compact and efficient
storage behind the wall. Rodgers adds, "We also used the wall to
nestle two 164-sq.-ft. band shells, sunk 2' below the show deckwhich
are necessary because it's a live music showand to contain the Cube
that serves as our centerpiece."
Emerging from behind a curtain in the center of the wall, the 13,000lb
Cube is anchored to an automated tracking system, located in the deck,
that moves it 25' downstage, rotates it on its vertical axis, and
splays out two walls, hinged on opposite corners, to reveal an inner
chamber. The two walls serve as oversized LED display screens for
multimedia content, and the top surface is accessible via a concealed
ladder and hatch for use as a supplementary mini-stage. The circuitry
for the Cube's mechanical and electrical systems is on its own 200A
supply, and the wallpaper on the backs of the walls is perforated with
tiny holes to supply air for cooling the LED panels.
"The wall panels are equipped with air brakes, and we have a readout
on their position so that we can stop them at exactly the right
angle," Fox says. "Under the Cube's floor panels are the motors that
allow it to rotate and pockets for all the power, DMX control, and
dimmers, as well as patch boxes for certain other things in the show
that we need, such as networking. There's also a large igus cable
spool underneath that allows the CAT6 cables to twist 360°."
The Cube is Waz's refuge, where he can safely cast off his golden
costume and TV persona. Like a magic box, it undergoes several
transformations in interior décor, as when it changes from Waz's
dressing room into his childhood bedroom, where he rummages through a
treasure chest of cherished mementos. At one point, the Cube becomes a
kind of time capsule where he watches home movies of his happy
childhood, which the audience sees on the splayed-out LED panels.
"We used the Cube less as a background surface and more as a monolith
in a Stanley Kubrick kind of way," Rodgers says. "With a scrim surface
on the back that allowed us to bleed light through to reveal what's
going on inside, the Cube became a living portion of the design. That
was one of our goals: We didn't want the scenery or the stage design
to feel latent or dead or too black, but to have an energy to it. The
lighting designer, Martin Labrecque, and I worked closely together to
ensure that every scenic piece has either LEDs infused into it or
lighting hidden within it."
That's also true for the 38"-high stage itself, Rodgers says: "When
you look at the history of big tops, they always have a fantastic
scenic floor with a great look; the façade of the stage always has a
character to it as well. Our concept for the stage was a granite
quarry.
Deconstruct that a little into blocks of granite, some of which are a
bit crumbly and others of which are perfect 90° cuts that have been
shaved and polished. Then sculpt these pieces together to make it look
as if the whole stage foundation was mined from a quarry, and now
let's infuse light into it. It looks a little broken, with cracks and
fissures, and light spills through the hard granite and gives it a
softness. The granite' is a combination of heavy-duty vacuform and
fiberglass on metal frameworks."
In a first for Cirque du Soleil, three slim, articulated hydraulic
lifts were incorporated into the center of the stage to raise and tilt
sections of the floor up to 22' above the deck in order to accommodate
several feats of physical prowess, including an extended trial bike-
riding scene in which the rider scales numerous obstacles without
setting foot on the ground. Each of the three lifts is equipped with
four Chauvet Professional ÉPIX LED strips mounted on its sides, while
on the base plate below the deck, six ETC 750W WFL PARs provide
interior lighting that effects the softness within the granite.
A lighting ring, populated with 32 Elation Professional ELAR Q1 LEDs,
is set into the floor near the outer edge of the stage. "These lights
can chase, tone, and give some footlight moments," Rodgers says. "The
combination of hard and soft, real and imagined, was a major piece of
the language, and having Martin be able to control and pulse light
through the stage gave it a sort of heartbeat and endowed it with
life."
The outer edge of the stage is defined by a ring of three sets of LED
tape that run under a diffusive Plexiglas covering and are spread
across 22 DMX universes. "The groove for the ring is 3" wide by 1"
deep," Fox says. "We're using RGBW tape at 144 LEDs per meter, with
two LED strips on the outer edge and one LED strip on the inner edge.
The ring is 38m long and includes 16,416 LEDs, excluding an additional
12 sets of lava' LED tape running from the ring to the base of the
stage facing."
A 4.5'-wide donut turntable, located between the central lift area and
lighting ring, is controlled by a TAIT Navigator system, as are the
lifts, Cube, bridge, and elements of the grid. As in all big top
shows, winches and hoists are floor-mounted under the bleachers, with
lift lines running up over pulleys at the top of the masts and down to
the loads. All equipment under the bleachers is covered during
performances to protect it from spilled drinks, popcorn, and other
detritus from excited spectators.
Two booths are provided in alcoves in the tent wall for the automation
console operator, stage manager, lighting console operator, and
multimedia operator. The front-of-house sound position is in the
seats, between the booths.
For the mind-blowing BMX bike finale, the stage is transformed into a
full-size skate park with six ramps made of thick, heavy-duty
polycarbonate, the same material used to make bulletproof glass. A
polycarbonate wall section is also winched down from the grid several
feet above a pair of ramps at downstage center. Fully transparent, the
wall and ramps allow spectators sitting in the front rows to witness
five death-defying riders hurtling directly toward them at white-
knuckle speed and bouncing off the wall high over the stage. A rider
landing on a ramp generates a force of 12Gs, essentially 12 times his
weight.
The finale celebrates Waz, now in control of his life and, according
to a program note, "admitted into this community of life-loving Free
Spirits. In a contagious spirit of celebration, they let it all out
and show their mettle." Some of the jaw-dropping tricks in this
sequence are described in the Cirque's publications with a fair degree
of understatement; for example: "The rider does a backflip with his
bike combined with a 180° spin before landing on the ramp. While doing
a backward flip with his bike, the rider performs a tail whip: he
throws the bike out to one side while still holding onto the
handlebars so that the frame goes 360° around the steering tube; he
then catches the frame again and stands back on the pedals." All this
while he's barreling straight at the seats mere feet away.
A SHOW BUILT AROUND LIGHT
-------------------------
"From the beginning, I wanted the show to be very bright and built
around light," says video content and interactive designer Thibaut
Duverneix. "That's something that the visual design team agreed with,
but I did not want to use projectors for two reasons. First, I didn't
want to compete with the lighting design. In a space like the big top,
it puts constraints on the lighting designer to make him work around
the projections. Second, I didn't want to have to manage the
inevitable shaking from all the movement on and above the stage. When
you're trying to rig projectors, it's difficult to maintain a really
stable image.
"Right from the beginning, we decided to work with LEDs and not
projectors. I wanted the whole place to be super-bright, and I also
wanted great image qualitysomething that would be warm for the
memories sequences featuring the cinematic footage that we shot, and
also the details that we were planning on doing with the
photorealistic CGI that we created with OctaneRender GPU-rendering. We
had to go with a product that was high-end and, also, because the
audience is very close to the set, something that would be sharp with
a high pixel density and that afforded good viewing angles. It's
invariably a problem that you get some bending artifacts if you look
at it from the side. The tricky part was to find a partner to build
the screens that would yield beautiful images with an organic feel. We
had the 4mm LED displays, with a resolution just under HD1540 x 900
pixelsmanufactured by Theatrixx Technologies in Montréal."
Some 200 Chauvet ÉPIX Strip Tour pixel-mapping 0.5m LED strip
fixtures, featuring 25 LEDs in a single row, and 26 ÉPIX Bar Tour
pixel-mapping 1m LED bars, featuring 150 LEDs in three rows, are
mounted around the stage, on the bridge and four masts, and at various
other locations throughout the big top, says technical designer
Olivier Gagnon. Duverneix and Gagnon customized a playback rig based
on a Coolux Pandoras Box V.6 media and show control system, using
Derivative TouchDesigner visual programming language, to achieve real-
time interactivity of the content on the LED strips, 4mm Cube
displays, and four small displays on the back wall, yielding a look
that's never exactly the same from one show to the next.
Duverneix says, "We created a software patch to control every single
LED in the space, and designed chasing effects and various shapes in
three dimensions in real time that can change color and create new
patterns in response to, say, the music, sound effects, and voices. It
is a very capable tool, given that there are so many DMX universes
running that it isn't possible to drive everything from the console.
TouchDesigner is a node-based framework that allowed us to use Python
and Open GL shaders. We built a number of software applications out of
this framework. One was a cue manager, enabling us to receive cues
from the music director, sound board, and lighting board, and also to
send cues ourselves. While the show runs on time code, it's organic in
that if someone happened to be falling unexpectedly and the musicians
decide to run an extra loop of music, they would send us a cue and we
would have a strategic procedure to adapt the show at that instant.
That way, everything was always super-synched while simultaneously
being interactive."
For communication with the lighting and sound departments, Duverneix
used OSC, Open Sound Control, which, he says, "is like MIDI, but
better for us, because it offers more addresses and more control over
the signal. Some devices don't read OSC, however, so we translate the
OSC to MIDI or Art-Net within TouchDesigner, depending on whether
we're sending it to the sound board or lighting console."
Three cast members are equipped with video cameras, which seems
natural given that there is ostensibly a TV show in progress; it
allows for a very effective use of straight and treated IMAG at
several points.
"I used IP cameras rather than broadcast cameras because I wanted to
have everything running on the network, and I hid them inside the
lenses of bigger ENG prop cameras that the performers carried around
the stage like a live TV crew," Duverneix says. "We used IDS cameras
from Germany; they are very robust and are typically employed in
industrial applications such as monitoring machinery. They take PL-
mount lenses, are powered via PoE [Power over Ethernet], and can
deliver 60fps on a Gigabit connection, so they are great for our
application. You get the raw feed, with very low latency, that you can
manipulate any way you want in the software.
"As with the filmed elements," he continues, "we had the option of
playing back the movies from Pandoras Box, or routing that output
through TouchDesigner and applying real-time shaders on top of it,
fragmenting the image, or creating other artifacts in real time. We
were typically working with four layers, but on occasion we were
working with up to 80 layersthe layering possibilities in
TouchDesigner are limited only by the amount of processing power in
the computers."
Duverneix and his team shot the footage for Waz's childhood home
movies with an Alexa camera and vintage Zeiss lenses from the 1970s.
"They are beautiful lenses, very soft and creamy," he says. "When you
stick them on a modern camera with a really sharp big sensor, they
don't cover the whole sensor, so it gives you a kind of vignette.
They're not exactly the same size as the sensor on the Alexa, which is
4Kactually 3.2K. But it was fine, because we were shooting square, so
I just cropped it because the vignette was outside of my shooting
zone.
"With the system we developed, we take the live feed from three
onstage cameras, add VFX on top of it in real time, and integrate it
with the filmed elements and CGI being rendered simultaneously in
response to various triggers from the other departments, thanks to the
speed of OctaneRender's GPU-rendering. All of this is done in real
time using TouchDesigner and some software we created with it. We did
a lot of R&D on this project just to find the right pipeline that is
super-responsive and still maintains really good quality. That's
important for me: I want to bring cinema quality to the stage, which
is a challenge because, onstage, people want things very quickly and
they want to be able to try different things in rehearsals and change
certain things, and you have to be responsive and follow the staging.
It's not like you're making a movie, where you edit it and it's over.
You have to be able to change, because the show is changing every
day." Nicolas Gendron served as project manager for video.
Along with the multimedia extravaganza, the lighting design goes a
long way toward establishing the overall atmosphere of Volta and
creating the illusion that there's a live TV program in progress. But,
as always, lighting is also tasked with highlighting performers and
focusing the audience's attention on particular details. "It's a
really weird process, because at Cirque we have to do a lighting
design even before they start rehearsing, so we're spending $1 million
to buy equipment for a show that we can see only on paper," Labrecque
says, noting that Volta is his fifth big top show.
* * *
Thats all for now! In our next issue well continue with Lighting
and Sound Design!
------------------------------------------------------------
"We're Off and Running - A Series of Classic Critiques"
Part 12 of 16: Dralion, Part 1 (1999-2001)
By: Ricky Russo - Atlanta, Georgia (USA)
------------------------------------------------------------
A few months ago, as I was flipping through a few classic Cirque du
Soleil programme books (as is my wont), I was happily caught off-guard
by a brief history of the company that it had written about itself in
Saltimbanco's original European Tour programme, published sometime in
1996. Not because the historia was in English, French, and Spanish,
but rather I found the wording a bit more colorful
haughty
than what
you'd find from the company today. Something about its whimsical and
heady nature spoke to the way Cirque du Soleil saw itself then,
containing a youthful verve and arrogance that is simply no longer
present. When did Cirque lose this dynamic sense of self, this
liveliness, and vivacity about its past, present, and future?
Unfortunately, not long after. Thereafter the speak becomes less joie
de vivre and more lié aux affaires, and Cirque du Soleil turns from a
rag-tag band of street performers into a bona fide corporate entity
right before our very eyes. This is not a new revelation - far from
it in fact - but this re-discovery struck a chord of curiosity within
How did others see Cirque du Soleil during this period?
Think about it: as Cirque's multitude of shows travel around the globe
in either arenas or under the big top, at each stop, in each city,
there is a write-up in the local press. Sometimes the coverage is just
a brief blurb about the show and its theme, occasionally there's a
short interview with a performer, a stage hand, or creation director,
and other times it's an assessment of the show itself, evaluating its
technical and acrobatic merits with what had come through before. But
the reviews we see today are too current, discussing these shows
through a contemporary lens; shows that have/had 15 to 20 years
touring the globe, shows we would refer to as "classic" or
"signature". What I'd become interested in knowing was what some of
the first reviews, peeks, and evaluations of these shows were as they
took their first steps across North America. How did the press see Le
Cirque du Soleil in 1998, 1994, 1990, 1987?
It was time to peck through the archives.
What I found was extraordinary, and more than I expected. And I'm
sharing these discoveries here in Fascination through a series of
collections, beginning with the 1987 tournée of Le Cirque du Soleil
(better known today as Le Cirque Réinventé), and continuing on from
there. This month we continue on with 1996 and 1997's reviews of
Quidam.
# # #
THE WORDS ARE THE MOVEMENT
By: Reed Johnson | L.A. Daily News
September 22, 1999
After 15 years of creating shows with more allegorical layers and
surreal visual effects than a Fellini film festival, Cirque du Soleil
is getting back to some big-top basics.
Cute kids. Exotic creatures. Breathtaking feats of hand and, um, feet.
Clowns that actually make you laugh, instead of making you feel you've
stumbled into one of those German expressionist paintings where
something bad is about to happen.
Since Cirque du Soleil's 1984 inception, the French-Canadian ensemble
has been internationally praised for expunging many of the corny
conventions that clung to mainstream circuses like the smell of old
popcorn.
But, having gained a worldwide reputation for its high-concept
spectacles, the fanciful troupe whose name translates as "Sunshine
Circus" wants to bring its act down to earth a bit.
When Cirque unveils "Dralion," its 13th full production, Thursday
under the blue-and-yellow Big Top next to the Santa Monica Pier, its
creators say audiences can expect a show that's closer in mood to
Barnum & Bailey than Ingmar Bergman.
"Cirque du Soleil, they said at the beginning that we reinvent the
circus. We don't reinvent nothing. We're just using what was there and
all the other circuses never used. Because, I'm sorry, we are a
circus! We present circus acts," says "Dralion" director Guy Caron,
speaking in his guttural Quebecois accent.
By now, tens of thousands of Southern Californians are as familiar
with Cirque's signature mix of acrobats, clowns, contortionists and
aerial artists as they are with Mickey and Goofy. (Thursday's opening
will mark Cirque's eighth L.A.-area visit in the past dozen years.)
And with companies performing from Biloxi to Berlin and Hong Kong,
Cirque is busily assembling a global marketing empire to rival
Disney's.
After starting out as a gaggle of Montreal street jugglers and stilt-
walkers nearly 20 years ago, Cirque today has a $30 million Montreal
headquarters housing 350 permanent employees, plus regional
headquarters in Asia, Europe and Las Vegas.
What apparently keeps customers coming back is Cirque's ability to
fuse simple, emotionally resonant story lines and art-crowd production
values with family-friendly entertainment - a strategy that other
circuses have been scrambling to imitate. Cirque offers avant-garde
theater for the masses in a hip but non-threatening package.
"What we're using from theater is the way to present one act," Caron
says, "because (the) circus is a lot of acts. It's not a story. It's a
little story, a story line, that's for sure. But it doesn't have
words. The words are the movement. But what we do, to try to link all
that stuff, is to create in each act, in each performance, something
with a dramatic orientation, to start and to finish it. And this is
the way you can link a show. It's totally confused if you see just a
jumping-board act, a hand-stand act, a clown. You know, it's not
(logical). The only way that you can link it altogether is with your
costumes, the music, the set, all that stuff, to try to create a
show."
With an environmental set designed by Stephane Roy, a rising star in
Canada's dance, film and theater worlds, "Dralion" is set in the kind
of sensuous, metaphor-laden dreamscape that is Cirque's trademark. But
its centerpiece is a muscular troupe of 35 elite acrobats from the
People's Republic of China, nearly half of them children. Caron says
he wanted "Dralion" to emphasize above all the technical marvels of
the human body by serving as a showcase for the acrobats'
preternatural grace and quicksilver athleticism.
"It was our old dream, and the dream come true," says Caron, who was
Cirque's first artistic director and is directing his first show with
the company since 1987. In recent years, he has served as general
manager of Le Centre National Des Arts Du Cirque in France and has
directed circus shows in Europe and the 20th-anniversary production of
the Big Apple Circus.
"What is the dream?" Caron continues. "The dream was to try to take a
troupe of 35 Chinese acrobats - I don't say acrobat-actors, because
the (Chinese), they are just acrobats, OK, in the way they present
their thing - and try to integrate it to the world of the Cirque du
Soleil and the imaginative world of the Cirque du Soleil. And this is
why we are coming back more to the basic(s) of the circus, because the
Chinese are more acrobat than they are actor or stage performer."
The idea for "Dralion" had been bouncing around in Cirque's collective
unconscious for a dozen years or so, Caron says, before he and
Cirque's current artistic director, Guy Laliberte, began fleshing out
the concept about two years ago. Its name comes from fusing the words
"dragon" and "lion," two beasts that symbolize, respectively, China
and France and, by extension, East and West.
At first, Caron and Laliberte conceived "Dralion" as a piece dealing
with the interplay between Oriental and Occidental sensibilities. That
idea has since been scrapped in favor of a story line about the
blending together of four different color-coded families, each
representing one of the four primeval elements: earth, air, fire and
water. As the show evolves, the four families exchange members and
gradually fuse together.
"The impression you get at the end of the show is, we start with four
families, and at the end it's one family - and that's the story of the
world," says designer Roy.
The harmonious mood of "Dralion" contrasts sharply with the ominous
tone of "Quidam," which visited Los Angeles in 1996. In "Quidam," a
young girl escapes from her oblivious parents into an eerie world of
headless, bowler-hatted men, chilly techno music and spooky blue-green
lighting.
The more spiritually uptempo "Dralion" utilizes world-beat music and
large, rotating wheels to represent the orbit of the sun and the
passage of time. Other design elements suggest analogies both with the
human body and the body of a giant animal, the mythical Dralion.
A massive cable running inside the Big Top suggests the beast's
central nervous system. The Dralion's eye and claw are represented by
an enormous overhead projector connected to huge, cantilevered steel-
and-aluminum hooks, nicknamed the Grip. The Grip scoops up the
performers while the projector-eye simultaneously observes them with
its anthropomorphic beam.
The child acrobats encounter the Dralion and begin to play with it,
just as children would play with a pet or a new toy, Caron says.
"We decided to create a show on the bonheur, the happiness of life,"
Caron explains. "And what is really the happiness of life is (a)
child, hmm? What is child? Child is the future. For me, it was so
important. And they are there to preserve their world, their
imaginations. And it's why we have 17, not (children), but kids
(performers) on this show, out of 35 artists."
Roy says his design was inspired in part by see-through contemporary
Japanese architecture, in which a building's mechanical guts are
exposed, revealing what he calls "the melodic structure."
"With Japanese architecture, you walk in and ... you see the
elevators, the cables, you see everything, the air conditioning, the
tubes, everything," Roy says. "It's like taking off the skin of an
arm, and you see everything - how it works, why. It looks high-tech,
but in fact the response is low-tech. It's human all the way."
The challenge with "Dralion," Roy says, was creating something
fantastic and mysterious while letting audiences glimpse the reality
behind the illusion. "The art of the circus is to see," he stresses,
"and it's something fantastic to see how it's being done. It's not a
magical trick inside a theater where you don't see anything, you don't
know how that person flies. It's the magic of knowing at the same time
- being surprised, but knowing how it's being done."
While "Dralion" marks a homecoming of sorts for Caron, it also
provides Cirque du Soleil with a chance to take stock artistically of
its first 15 years. Like the rest of the planet, Cirque spent part of
the late 1990s anxiously pondering the coming millennium. When
"Quidam" opened three years ago, its director, Franco Dragone, said
that the show "casts light on our frailty and angst at the dawn of a
new century."
For now, frailty and angst are, as Caron might say, passe.
"At the beginning of this new millennium, everybody's saying, 'Oh,
with this new millennium, what's going to happen?' "Caron says. "For
me, the world's going to turn like it's turned for I don't know how
many years. The people are waiting for something. Me, I say, `No way!
We are alive! And the world never stop. The world will turn and don't
stop. Why don't we create a show to just be happy and have fun?' "
* * * * * *
A WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL
By: Don Shirley | LA Times
September 27, 1999
Cirque du Soleil may have shown most of us how to enjoy circuses
without animals, but a few holdouts still like to see four-footed
performers too. The Montreal wizards who run the Cirque apparently
realized this.
Voila--"Dralion."
Entrancing as ever in the U.S. debut of its latest extravaganza at
Santa Monica Pier, the Canadian circus created its own cage-free,
food-free faux animals. By attaching the head of a dragon to the body
of a lion--in a style Americans will associate with Chinese New Year
parades--and then implanting nimble (human) tumblers inside these
"dralions," the Cirque added a playful new dimension to this year's
show.
The fact that these dralions aren't actual animals may still
disappoint a few picky purists. But for the rest of us, the dralions
offer the primary appeal of the big animal acts--seeing supposedly
unwieldy beasts performing surprisingly graceful routines--without any
morning-after animal-rights regrets of the sort that send celebrities
to congressional hearings.
The dralions' star-making moment is in the second half, when they
briefly venture into the audience and then join other tumblers in
performing stunts atop rolling balls. In the grand finale, accompanied
by incongruous but jaunty music reminiscent of a hoedown, a dralion
rides a ball across a teeterboard.
Of course, most of the performers in "Dralion" aren't wearing animal
costumes--this is not "The Dralion King." As usual with the Cirque,
this edition is full of clearly identifiable human beings performing
seemingly superhuman feats--many of them involving giant ascending and
descending rings poised over center stage. At the back of the stage we
sometimes glimpse a massive wall to which acrobats cling, as if
they're in the process of scaling it. A few clowns periodically bring
everyone back down to earth.
What's most unusual about this show, other than the title creatures
themselves, is a remarkable bit of self-parody. The Cirque has long
been ripe for spoofing. For example, this show is structured around
four symbol-laden performers who keep hovering at the periphery of
other artists' acts; we're told they represent water, earth, fire and
air. Or just look at the language with which director Guy Caron begins
his program note: "Cyberspace, market globalization and the
modernization and acceleration of communications mean that more than
ever, our way of life spans the planet."
Too bad no one in the show makes fun of Caron's verbiage. But late in
the second act, the clowns do perform pointed burlesque versions of
some of the acts we've just witnessed, including most of the four
living symbols. This ability to laugh at oneself is the mark of a
truly self-confident organization.
Self-confidence goes with the territory. Peng Rui, the 12-year-old
whose hand-balancing begins the featured acts, is exhibit A; her
supporting arm never wavers despite a variety of contortions that turn
the rest of her body into Silly Putty. Fiery-haired Viktor Kee does a
juggling act that is as notable for the display of every contour of
his splendid physique as it is for his actual juggling. Juliana Neves
and Ivo Guoerguiev perform an aerial pas de deux that is memorably
erotic, to the strains of Violaine Corradi's haunting music.
The clowns include a nerdy fellow who frequently emits amusing gasps
and chuckles over a megaphone, when he isn't balancing on a string
bass or ripping into a set of drums; and a young woman with a mop-top
hairdo and a short guy who make mischief with a purported audience
"volunteer."
A delegation from the Xinan troupe of China makes up the heart of the
acrobatic chorus. Bamboo poles, teeterboards, a double trapeze, hoops
and jump ropes are among the favored props. In one number described in
press materials as "being presented for the first time in the world,"
five young women dance on pointe and form human towers--atop a garden
of light bulbs. Each number from the Chinese troupe bursts with
animation and energy, and on opening night the precision was
impeccable--until the grand finale of the hoop-jumping, when two
attempts to leap through the highest hoop yet, without making the
hoops fall, were unsuccessful.
This small imperfection was a useful reminder that the spectacle is
live, not canned, and that the excitement of the here and now--not
cyberspace and market globalization--are why people keep flocking to
the Cirque du Soleil.
* * * * * *
REVIEW: DRALION
By: Steven Oxman | Variety
September 27, 1999
No longer the little Canadian circus that could, Cirque du Soleil, now
a brand name, runs seven different productions simultaneously
throughout the world. Several are anchored for long-term runs. To keep
topping itself, to continue finding new talent and ideas, it must
search everywhere for inspiration, so it makes perfect sense for
Cirque du Soleil to look East for its newest show, "Dralion," which
borrows heavily from Chinese traditions and melds them into an
eclectic celebration of the global melting pot at the turn of the
millennium. If it's not as surprisingly inventive and awe-inspiring as
previous Cirque shows at the Santa Monica Pier, it's still just as
spectacular, exuberant, and downright delightful.
The slow-moving, spare images that provided such striking dreamscapes
in Quidam and Mystere give way in Dralion to a kind of foot-
stomping, multicultural carnival. The colorful Chinese dragons
appearing throughout, each performed by two humans working in
wonderful unison, seem for a while to be purely atmospheric in
function. But soon theyre performing acrobatic stunts of their own
to music that resembles nothing so much as the sounds of a country
hoedown. This kind of cultural juxtaposition is repeated many times,
with, for example, an African dancer conjuring an act of young Asian
acrobats diving through hoops as Gaelic-inspired music keeps the
rhythm.
The show revels in its inconsistency of time as well as place. The
back wall of the stage provides a futuristic, golden grid, and at
times performers climb all over it as if they were spiders preparing a
web. At other moments, the show seems to take the audience back in
time, using imagery more classical in nature. What does remain
consistent is the sense of festivity.
The most remarkable of the acrobatics come from 13-year-old Peng Rui
of China, who contorts her body while balancing herself on one hand
for a shocking length of time. Some of the other acts, however, are a
bit underwhelming, although that could be because the show is still
early in its run. There are definitely some rough edges to be worked
out in the double trapeze act and in the hoop diving, both of which,
especially the latter, could eventually become crowd favorites. The
teeterboard, where the acrobats are propelled up onto one anothers
shoulders, is performed here entirely by women. Another group of five
Asian women also perform a ballet on light bulbs, an act that is
beautiful to watch but seems intended to come across more impressively
than it does.
That the pageantry, rather than the acrobatics, is more the focus here
points out both the strengths and potential weaknesses of Cirque du
Soleil.
Dralion is actually the companys third new show to premiere in the
last year, and its questionable whether it can keep up its very high
standards at this pace. Already, the focus seems to have shifted
somewhat from group to individual acts. Will the always-amusing
clowning, the gorgeous design work and the grandeur be enough to
attract the audiences if the acrobatics themselves are no longer as
awesome? Or will Gilles Ste-Croix, the troupes new director of
creation, render the question moot by finding the next new human
wonders of the world?
For now, at least, theres a party to go to. Dralion celebrates life
on Earth, including beasts both big and small, flying and crawling,
past and present. If the images dont stay in ones head as long as
those from Quidam, the pleasant feeling still lingers long after
leaving the big top.
* * * * * *
FLIRTING WITH THE FANTASTIC
By: Allison Cohen | LA Times
November 30, 1999
Cirque du Soleil's blue and yellow striped big-top is back in Orange
County and underneath it is a feast for the eyes with its new non-
circus circus, "Dralion."
"Dralion" marries East (the dragon) with West (the lion) in a
cacophony of images that blend the traditional acrobatics of a Chinese
circus with the avant-garde theatricality that has become Cirque's
trademark. Don't worry if you don't get "Dralion's" theme celebrating
air, water, fire and earth, narrated by two masters of ceremonies that
sing in Cirque's own made-up language. "Dralion" is an aesthetic
adventure open to individual interpretation.
"We don't try to make sense," says creative director Gilles Ste-Croix.
"Like an artist that picks color to make a painting, we . . . are
making an impression of something."
Critiqued as modest in comparison to recent Cirque spectacles--like
the aquatic themed "O" now playing at Las Vegas' Bellagio hotel
"Dralion" is a pure mix of breathtakingly beautiful modern dance with
nail-bitting acrobatic circus intensity--and some belly laughs thrown
in for good measure.
More than 18 million people worldwide have seen a Cirque du Soleil
performance since its founding in Quebec in 1984. "Dralion"--which
runs 2 1/2 hours including intermission--marks the troupe's 13th
production.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
* A 13-year-old performer contorts her body in so many different ways
that you almost lose sight of what her body looks like to begin with.
And she does this while balancing on one hand on a cane. "I'm always
astonished that some artists can do such perfect things," says Ste-
Croix. "It's like [the human body as] art form."
* The second act opens with an enormous white lantern illuminated from
within--a technical marvel borrowed from the Chinese. "We've tried to
bridge West and East," Ste-Croix said, adding, "There's never been a
lantern that size before." Performers, suspended from the big top
ceiling on trapezes, fly by in slow, gliding, swooping motions or swim
through the air as if it were liquid--it's a magically spinning
shadow-dance.
* Five ballerinas dance on pointe atop a stage of lightbulbs in a
first-of-its-kind performance. "The lightbulbs were very new," says
choreographer Julie Lachance of the act first developed in China. "We
pushed it," she said. "The [Chinese artists] are open to trying new
things."
* A man and a woman erotically wrap their limbs in long sheets of blue
cloth suspended from the big top ceiling and then flirt above the
crowd in an aerial pas de deux. Astonishingly sensual and heightened
by the audience's awareness that the performers are sans safety net,
harness and belts, it's a roaring crowd favorite.
* The trickiest of acts is the "Double Trapeze": Two couples perform
acrobatic feats in unison. The act seems so effortless that audiences
may not fully comprehend its complexity; the mirror images are
seamlessly lyrical. "It's mind-blowing that they can do such a trick,"
Ste-Croix says.
* Audience members should not be surprised if they find themselves
hapless stooges, drawn into the pre-show antics of a trio of hilarious
clowns: a goofy woman with a spout of fuzzy hair and a bothersome
short skirt that keeps riding up her candy-cane colored stockings; a
nerdy fellow with a megaphone; and a nervous Nellie of a man in a
trench coat.
* Everyone's smiling during a finale that showcases the simple and
joyous children's game of jump rope--Cirque du Soleil style. The
children flip and make pyramids and three-person-high columns--while
hopping and jumping in and out of skipping ropes.
CUSTOM DESIGNS
For this production, Cirque's creative team selected 54 international
performers, including seven musicians and Xunan Circus, a troupe of 35
acrobats from Kumming, China.
The set was designed specifically for this show. Performers disappear
down trapdoors, and they float out of sight, at times, to the top of
the tent. There are three huge concentric rings used for different
purposes: to hang lights or projectors; as a catwalk for performers
waiting to make entrances; and as a transport to move performers from
one part of the stage to another. And there's a metallic wall at the
back of the stage that performers rappel from throughout the
performance.
Costumes were months in the making, sewn of horsehair, hardware, emu
feathers--even window screens.
The lively music is a mix of African drums, Hindu melodies, rock riffs
and instrumental pieces from Andalusia, Africa and Central Europe.
Santa Monica audiences--where the show just finished a two-month run
gave "Dralion" standing ovations and multiple encores. "That's what we
aim for," Ste-Croix said. "We're always working to get that response."
* * * * * *
DRALION ROARS INTO TOWN
Paul Iorio | San Francisco Chronicle
January 30, 2000
There are some things that can probably be seen nowhere else in the
Western World except at "Dralion," the new Cirque du Soleil show that
opens Thursday in San Francisco. Where else can one see a man play the
cello while climbing up the instrument? Or a woman catapulted by
seesaw to a chair balanced on five women standing on top of one
another? Or nine people simultaneously skipping rope, with five of
them on the others' backs?
The two-hour circus showcase of dance, acrobatics and comedy is
playing to sold-out crowds across North America. The show, the sixth
of the Cirque's more than a dozen productions to play in the Bay Area
since 1988, sets up its tent this week next to Pacific Bell Park.
Despite the shows it keeps mounting and spinning around the world like
so many plates on sticks, the Cirque tries to make each production
seem entirely new, without losing the company's signature style.
Like its predecessors, "Dralion" -- the word means a mythical Chinese
creature that is part dragon, part lion -- has no central narrative,
except some vague stuff about the four elements that maintain the
natural order: air, water, fire and earth. Rather, the show is about
visual spectacle, choreography of the improbable and the near
impossible.
If Dralion is different from other Cirque shows it's probably because
of a new team of directors. The show also marks the return after a 10-
year absence of director Guy Caron, 50, a former circus school founder
who was involved in the early years of Cirque and went on to lead
circuses throughout Europe..
Inventing "Dralion" was something of an adventure. Caron and his
associates searched remote parts of the globe to find troupes that
were performing unusual and extraordinary acts. In southeast China,
for example, he found performers who could walk on a ball the size of
a boulder and ride it for a distance; they soon became part of the
show.
How did he find such acts? Simple, Caron says: "We arrived in China
and we said, 'Can we see this troupe and this troupe?' And we (saw)
seven troupes and we decided (which one) was . . . artistically best
for us to create something with them. We see something around the
world and we say, 'Oh, we can integrate this in the act.' "We (often)
work with acts that (have already been) created," Caron continues.
"For us, we have two possibilities: We create a script and we try to
find the act to go on the script, or we (find) an act and we look at
it and we try to create the show around the act."
The use of outside players in "Dralion" is another departure for the
Cirque. "This is the first time ever that Cirque hired a whole troupe
-- from China or from anywhere -- to be thehouse troupe," says Roch
Jertis, artistic coordinator for the show. After collecting performers
from all over the world, Caron began what he calls "the big
brainstorm" sessions that created "Dralion." Sitting down with his
various specialists -- the costume designer, set designer, musical
director and others -- Caron and company tried to unify the elements
of the show.
"They sat at a table for hours and wrote down ideas," says Jertis.
"And they wrote down anything. Anything goes. Maybe Guy Caron thinks
about a woman coming down from somewhere. And the guy who is in charge
of creating all these mechanics will say, 'I think it's possible.' And
it all comes together." Caron adds, "Everyone comes with his own idea,
all the creators, and we came around a table for two or three days and
discussed (ideas)."
In some instances -- as in the case of a Chinese troupe who catapulted
performers to high places -- Caron modified the act to suit the
production. "We transformed a lot of things -- like the jumping board
act. We decided to introduce a performer on stilts to the act. And we
transformed everything: costume, light, choreography. But the basic of
it was there."
With other performers, such as the juggler, he presents the
performance as it is, more or less. "The act of the juggler -- I see
how I can introduce it and how I can change the light a little bit,
but I don't really change his act," he says. "Dralion" continues to
evolve, at least around the edges. Although most of the show is full
of fixed and precise routines, there are wild cards that make for an
edgy and spontaneous experience for the audience -- particularly the
segments involving the four clowns who appear throughout the show with
their street-style comedy. "The only numbers that are really changing
are the clown numbers because they are not restricted with a certain
discipline like all the others," says costume designer Francois
Barbeau. "The other acts are quite difficult to change; it's so much
precision." The clowns are clearly audience favorites. "They love the
clowns," Jertis says. "Sometimes I walk around in the audience with no
identification, just to get the feel, and (I hear): 'Those clowns are
fantastic, they're incredible.' "It's always a sense of freshness with
the clowns. Every time they go out onstage you almost feel that it's a
new thing they're doing. You can go see the show from one week to
another and there'll always be something a little new with the
clowns." The audience also seems to like the aerial pas de deux,
Caron's own favorite part of the show ("It's a full creation of mine
and I'm very happy about it") and the juggling act, in which a woman
on the ceiling hands balls to the juggler on a rising stage.
In "Dralion," one can still see remnants of the Cirque's early street-
theater spirit, even though it's apparent that the company has evolved
into something much grander. One element has remained the same through
time. "When you see a Cirque show," Jertis says, "you always have a
surprise."
* * * * * *
A DANCING JUGGLER WHOSE ACT PLAYS TAG WITH GRAVITY
By: Matthew Gurewitsch | New York Times
March 19, 2000
The music hall and the circus are not the places devotees of dance
hang out looking for revelations, which as a rule probably saves them
disappointment, but every so often a revelation comes along. A case in
point: the 29-year-old Ukrainian juggler Viktor Kee (born Kiktev),
currently in San Francisco through next Sunday with Cirque du Soleil's
extravaganza, "Dralion." (The show moves to San Jose on April 6 and to
Denver on June 6.) His act involves seven solid plastic balls, hand-
molded by the artist himself, which he not only sends flying in arcs
that amaze the eye but somehow also catches -- no hands -- on a
shoulder, on a knee, on the back of his neck. At one point, planted on
his knees, he lines up five balls straight down his undulating spine.
If the balls stuck in place, you would suspect Velcro or maybe
magnets, but no. Mr. Kee releases them back to the pull of gravity,
and they roll off to swirl once more. At the same time, he dances a
solo, both sinuous and angular, that climbs steadily to the ecstatic.
Somewhere on his family tree there must be a serpent, maybe the one
that tempted Eve. Mr. Kee worked the moves out with the help of his
former wife, Galina, a jazz dancer with an act of her own involving
swinging bowling pins. Currently she is appearing at the Moulin Rouge
in Paris.
A reviewer who caught Mr. Kee in a gala of gastronomy and variete
called "Pomp, Duck and Circumstance," which played New York and
Atlanta a while back, was moved to wonder in print, "What if Diaghilev
had choreographed for a juggler?" -- momentarily forgetting that the
founding impresario of the Ballets Russes hired choreographers rather
than making dances himself. Still, the question conjured up the right
associations, if Nijinsky had been a juggler.
Built on the lines of an Art Deco diver, he stands 5 feet 10 inches
and weighs 155 pounds, with no waist to speak of (his jeans are size
28) but broad, square shoulders and robust thighs to match. He warms
up for each show with two hours of practice and gymnastics. Asked what
is hardest about his act, he knocks off a list: "Concentration.
Cardiovascular fitness. Being able to juggle while doing the
choreography."
What is the worst thing that can happen? "The timing can go wrong," he
says. "The tricks are timed to the music. If you lose your timing,
it's hard to get back. You can't be tense. If you're tense, you can't
juggle." His fresh, open face and easy smile in the arena reflect no
tension at all. Juggling seven balls looks like the easiest thing in
the world.
Like Nijinsky, the self-styled clown of God, Mr. Kee radiates
something spiritual; bravura, in the end, is not the message. In
earlier versions of his solo, he began by hatching from a transparent
egg. In "Dralion," he springs from within a spiderlike monstrosity,
but the meaning is the same. "I jump out," Mr. Kee explains simply.
"I'm naked, afraid."
Not literally naked, although the effect of the costume he designed
for "Dralion," flesh-colored with a few splashes of color, is
purposely more revealing than the flashy finery he has worn at
pleasure domes like the Moulin Rouge and the Lido in Paris and the
Friedrichstadt Palast in Berlin. "I had many costumes," he recalls.
"One was a Versace tricot. It had a beautiful line. But wearing
something like that, you represent a character, not yourself. I want
to be nice, not just show a nice costume." What matters for Mr. Kee's
act of discovery is the sense of awakening life.
His first prop is a heart he produces mysteriously from inside his
almost invisible costume. An aerial sprite appears high in the tent,
discovers him, glides low for a closer encounter, receives the heart
and ascends. From the heights, she drops a white ball, which Mr. Kee
catches.
At once, things start to change. "I think, 'Maybe this thing belongs
to me,' " Mr. Kee explains. "I start to play." Another white ball
drops, and another and another, a half dozen in all. From poised but
tentative beginnings, the juggling gains greater and greater
virtuosity. The last of the seven balls is red, like the heart. From a
final explosion that scatters balls every which way, Mr. Kee magically
picks the red one, which he tosses to the airborne spirit: the gift of
his art sealing the prior gift of his heart.
Unlike the typical dancer, whose body is the instrument for many
dances, Mr. Kee encapsulates all he has to say in a single seven-
minute number. It makes him a nice living, but has taken him far from
his roots. While working in Paris, he found an apartment near the Pont
Alexandre III, a showpiece of czarist gilt and ornament that Russia
built as a gift to France. It was a nostalgic reminder of home.
Occasionally, Mr. Kee branches out. Once, he slogged through a
blizzard-locked Manhattan to juggle telephones behind James Earl Jones
in a commercial for Bell South.
"I don't like two pages of biography," Mr. Kee remarks. "Who cares?"
The immediate subject is his Web site, www.viktorkee.com, which skims
lightly indeed over his history, personal and professional: he first
performed at 6 in Ukraine, trained at the Professional Circus School
in Kiev, scored a special prize at the Cirque de Demain festival in
Paris in 1994.
NO doubt the gallery of color photographs at the site attracts closer
scrutiny. Subdivided into "artistic," "posters" and "show" sections,
it gives heavy play to glitz, skin and muscle. One magic image in
"show" catches Mr. Kee tossing seven balls, like the seven stars of
the Big Dipper. More magical by leagues, though, is the blurry black-
and-white snap Mr. Kee saves for last in the "backstage" area (arrived
at from the home page via the icon marked "fun"). Shot at a rehearsal
in Ukraine, with the artist in practice clothes, it goes beyond the
controlled environment of performance into the realm of pure quest.
Just for the divinity of the thing, Mr. Kee is floating a zigzag
constellation not of seven balls but of nine.
* * * * * *
CIRQUE'S LATEST EXTRAVAGANZA ROARS TO LIFE
By: Sandra C. Dillard | Denver Post
June 4, 2000
Cirque du Soleil, with its mind-blowing acrobatics, otherworldly
costumes, world beat music and sly sense of humor, burst onto the
entertainment scene in 1984, and show biz hasn't been the same since.
There's simply nothing else like this unique, theatrical, animal-free
circus that travels the world to find athletes with amazing physical
abilities and transforms them into artists.
The latest offering from Cirque, that now has eight shows traveling
internationally, is "Dralion." The name is a combination of "dragon"
and "lion," and boasts a fusion of ancient Chinese acrobatic tradition
and Cirque's avant garde approach to clowning, tumbling, acrobatics,
high-flying trapeze work and how-do-they-do-that physical contortions.
"Dralion," which arrived in Denver with 41 trucks and 720 tons of
sets, props, costumes and equipment, opens Tuesday in Cirque's
trademark Blueand-Yellow Big Top tent in the Pepsi Center parking lot,
where it will play through July 16.
Each Cirque show has a different theme. For example, the acclaimed "O"
is a water show presented in a specially built theater at Bellagio
Resort in Las Vegas. "Quidam," which sold out in Denver in 1997, is
tied together by a headless giant carrying an umbrella. "Dralion"
featuring 54 artists from eight different countries, including a
troupe of 35 Chinese acrobats - is themed around the four elements:
water fire, air and earth.
"It's a celebration of life, a celebration of fun," said Guy Caron,
whose insouciant personality reflects the fun-loving clown he used to
be. Today his credits include founding Montreal's National Circus
School, and joining Cirque du Soleil in 1984 as artistic director,
creator and actor. "You are going to laugh. You are not going to
smile, you are going to laugh. And the roots of the circus, the
acrobatic stuff, you'll never think from beginning to end to eat a
piece of popcorn," he said. "Nobody in the world has the facility to
create what we do," Caron said. "Cirque gives me all the tools to do
my artistic vision. I'll say, 'I have this idea, but it's expensive.'
They say, 'Don't think about the money.' They have no limits."
A recent Denver Post visit to The Studio (Cirque's world headquarters
in Montreal) bore out Caron's statement.
The Studio, where the planning, rehearsals and preparation for all
Cirque shows takes place, is a huge mod-industrial metal and glass
building that sits on several acres of what was a former waste dump
about 20 minutes from the center of Montreal.
The multi-story edifice includes offices, rehearsal rooms, and a high-
ceiling gymnasium filled at the time with leaping, tumbling Chinese
acrobats who are the replacements for the current troupe, whose last
performances will be in Denver. There's also a light, airy two-story
costume shop the size of a small city, and a cafeteria headed by a
chef to a former prime minister. There are more than 500 employees
(250 in the costume shop alone), whose hiring provided a definite
economic boost to Montreal, Canada's largest and poorest city.
But the magical shows are the main consideration. "Every one is
different, but similar in sense," said Serge Roy, artistic director of
"Dralion," which features performers from Bulgaria, Brazil, China,
Ukraine, the Ivory Coast, France, the U.S. and Canada. "All of the
designers come with their own taste, and their own touch of what the
show should be. We're not trying to write down a story line, but
creating images. 'Dralion' is rhythms, smiles, colors, clang, clang."
The sets and costumes - red for fire, blue for air, green for water,
and ochre for earth - are a major component of the show's image, and
award-winning costume designer Francois Barbeau was given a free hand.
Invited to design for "Dralion," Barbeau shopped around the globe from
the finest fabric emporiums to "dollar" stores, to realize his vision.
That vision includes wedding horse-hair, raffia, metal, window screen,
feathers, crystal, Styrofoam, fun fur, springs, telephone antennas,
and even Christmas ornaments to costumes created from more than 5,000
yards of silk, lycra, velvet, leather, moleskin and cotton blend.
"Dralion" is the latest in the 16-year line of Cirque shows, and just
as in the others, said Lyn Heyward, vice president of creation, "You
know you're always going to be surprised. 'Cirque' has a very unique
sort of creative process. We decide when we need to do a show, and my
rule is to decide that when they do get together to do a show, that
they have all resources available to them. Casting is getting the
right performers, dancers, singers, acrobats and gymnasts. Some are
more circus, some are more sport, some are more artistic. We have to
bring together all these elements. What we try to offer the (show's)
creator is a buffet table, with so many good choices that you have to
choose. The director is responsible for filling his plate with the
most appealing choices."
Casting director Murielle Cantin summed up: "Casting is not one size
fits all. Yes, the acrobats are young (10-35), but there are roles for
older performers. When you are a clown, you are a character, and a
clown is only as old as their heart." Cantin said there are two
different ways of casting. "When you're replacing ongoing shows, such
as "Dralion,' you have to respect the concept (i.e., a troupe of
Chinese acrobats to replace another troupe of Chinese acrobats). For
new shows, you can keep the concept open. The most challenging show to
cast was 'O,' because of the water element. It was not just about
finding synchronized swimmers and divers; it was finding acrobats who
were comfortable in the water. For 'Dralion,' the challenge was 35
people who come from another country, who have been trained
differently, and have been studying since the age of 6. Finally, we
find that sometimes with the (fame) of Cirque du Soleil, artists will
be shy, thinking we're much too high a caliber. But we are also
looking for good potential. If we see them, and believe in them, we
will persist and try to find the right route for them in one of our
shows. Because we have several shows, it's even possible for artists
to change shows. And in later years, a former acrobat could become a
coach, a coordinator, an artistic director. And with all our artists,
when we see them in a show, and we feel the enthusiasm and the
response of the audience, we say, 'This is what it is all about."'
* * * * * *
DRALION, BOTH A CELEBRATION OF LIFE, CERTIFIED CROWD PLEASER
By: Sandra C. Dillard | Denver Post
June 8, 2000
"Dralion," the latest offering from the ever-inventive Cirque du
Soleil, soars on the wings of sight, sound and sensation.
Exploding with seemingly impossible physical feats, other-worldly
costumes and haunting music, the fantasy circus transports audiences
from open-mouthed awe at the acrobatic tumbling and trapeze feats to
sidesplitting laughter at the antics of the clowns.
Performed in a blue and yellow circus tent, "Dralion," presented
through July 16 in the Pepsi Center parking lot, is a combination of
dragon and lion, with the theme "east meets west." A celebration of
life and the four elements - earth, air, fire and water - it's the
kind of show where every member of the audience will have a favorite
act.
In an entertainment filled with highlights, some performances in
particular stand out. A special joy is the balletic "Pas de Deux,"
performed by Julia Neves and Ivo Guoerguiev, who appear as graceful as
butterflies as they float and whirl high in the air, supported only by
descending lengths of blue fabric.
Flame-haired Viktor Kee astounds as he juggles balls not only with his
hands and body, but even manages to line them up along his spine.
Central to the show is a troupe of astoundingly agile Chinese
acrobats. Young men and women whose slimness belies their great
strength, fling themselves through the air as if completely weightless
in a double trapeze act. Young men in vibrant African-inspired attire,
complete with spiky headdresses, dive and tumble through a vertical
stack of golden hoops. Pretty young women in yellow/green leotard and
tights propel themselves one by one on a teeterboard until they form a
tower of five.
A tiny girl (Peng Rui) in green rivets the audience as she balances on
only one hand, and artfully arranges her body in a series of how-does-
she-do-that contortions.
In "Ballet on Lights," young women clad in intense shades of blue and
navy dance on point, balancing on the tips of their toes on the tops
of rows of lightbulbs surrounded by light-tipped laser rods, for a
particularly lovely effect.
The action - tied together by two singers in amazing caped costumes
with towering headdresses, several romping "dralions" with gigantic
heads and furry bodies, and capering clowns - is nonstop.
Some feats work better than others: A couple of tricks in a sequence
involving young men rolling and leaping on a series of multicolored
wooden balls required more than one attempt. Rather than take away
from the fun, it led to even greater applause when the feat was
accomplished.
As for the clowns, their carryings-on make the show's first act feel a
little padded, but they more than redeem themselves in the second act,
in which their sendup of the "Dralion" entertainment brings screaming
laughter.
* * * * * *
CIRQUE'S GUY CARON
By: Tony Nguyen | Asia Express
July 20, 2000
Guy Caron is the founder of Montreals National Circus School and has
worked with a number of circuses around the world. In 1984, he joined
forces with Cirque du Soleil as artistic director, creator and actor
in the productions of Le Grand Tour, Le Cirque du Soleil, La Magie
Continue and We Reinvent the Circus.
Since 1991, he has directed many circus shows in Europe and has acted
as artistic consultant on many more, including Crescendo in Paris, and
Cirque du Soleils Pomp Duck and Circumstance in Germany.
Dralion features 54 artists from 8 different countries (Brazil,
Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Ivory Coast, Ukraine and the United
States), including a house troupe of 35 Chinese acrobats. The multi-
talented performers present a variety of high-calibre acts: ballet on
lights, hoop diving, bamboo poles, juggling, teeterboard, double
trapeze and skipping ropes.
AsiaXpress had the honors of interviewing Mr. Caron on his thoughts
about the Asian influence on Dralion.
His dream of Dralion started two years ago when he envisioned
combination of a Chinese dragon and lion dance. His goal was to change
an artists relationship between a Chinese show and a Cirque du Soleil
show. Dralion created a separate animal but the basis of the lion
dance is there such as jumping balls and 3 lions on a ball.
Q: What influence does Asian music have on Dralion?
We dont use it. We dont want to make any kind of reference on the
costume and in the music. We dont want to make an Asian show, its
Cirque du Soleil totally from beginning to end. What we see on stage
is the acrobat's techniques that we transform to the show. If you come
to see a Chinese show, this is not it. But you will feel the
experience, artistically, of where a Chinese troup can go with us.
This is different from a normal Chinese show, the music is not there
but youre going to have some reference in the costumes that they wear
or the makeup. China is currently growing at a rapid pace. In the last
five years, Ive been there six to seven times and each year I go
there I feel the difference. Right now, the western culture has had a
great influence [in China] including fashion, technology, style, and
music. Everybody has [an] Armani, Christian Dior, [or] the latest
gadgets in technology, the new fashion trends. The only thing that
hasn't changed is the system but the people have changed, in that why
we have to represent a new image of China and to me, the new image of
China is woman in the front. The soul of Chinas people on stage
without the tradition and youll see that thats very powerful.
Q: Were there any opposition to your ideas of breaking down Chinas
tradition and culture?
The director of the Chinese troup is a woman and they are an army
troup so they are very obedient. I am the boss and "you tell me what
to do". It was different for the older men to understand my concept
but there were no opposition. For example, in an act that might take
the older men ten minutes to learn, it only takes 30 seconds for a
young kid to figure out.
Q: Does the show change from city to city?
The show stays the same. Maybe when someone gets hurt you might change
a little.
Q: Did you have the certain acts in mind then went to pick the troup
or choose the troup and built the show around it?
The act was there, the troup was there with the act. We choose the act
and were going to change the act. I say, we want a lion dance and she
says sure we have a lion dance. I say, we want a bamboo act, she says
we normally use bamboo so we have to create a new act but with the
creativeness of the Chinese artists. They have a diving act, but we
transformed the entire choreographic of the act in which to present.
Its why I choose a troup with some act and we choose the acts that we
wanted from that troup and we build the show around it. We have only
one act that we created for Cirque that they didnt have. We have two
people flying in the air with silk ribbons.
Q: What is the intriguing aspect about blending the traditional
chinese culture with your concept of this show?
It was a dream at first. I love this culture. I love the people, I
love everything they did in the past. Everything that I see in China
is wonderful. What I want to [do is] go further with this ... to
change the way they move on the stage. To put their soul on the stage.
You dont have to be just an acrobat but to be like an acrobat , actor
on a circus. It was the thing that I tried to work so hard. Youre
going to see a lot of computer equipment wherever you sit but its not
where I really want to go. The show youre going to see , theres no
problem. Theyve made the show for 14 months now but when I started it
was so hard to arrive there. For me, the most important thing is to
take these people and say give me the real soul that you have on your
body and put it on stage.
* * * * * *
CIRQUE DU SOLEIL RINGS OF ANOTHER WORLD
By: Pamela Sommers | Washington Post
October 14, 2000
Cirque du Soleil is not quite the anti-circus, as some traditionalists
would have you believe. Yet since its founding 16 years ago in Quebec,
its creators have truly redefined what "circus" means.
A Cirque spectacular is resolutely devoid of animal acts. It is as
much about movement and mime and color and music as it is about
tumbling and trapezes and juggling and clowns. There's an
otherworldly, New Age, multicultural, alternately androgynous and
erotic feeling to the enterprise. One is confronted by a society of
beings whose style of dress, locomotion, communicating and gaze is
alien and fascinating.
"Dralion," one of Cirque du Soleil's half-dozen spectacles currently
touring the globe, had its area premiere Wednesday evening in a tent
next to Tysons Galleria. The production conjures a world that
fetchingly and fantastically blends Asian, African and Western
cultural elements. There's no plot, just a succession of dreamlike
figures entering and exiting from the ceiling, from trapdoors and out
of clouds of dry ice.
A tiny girl balances on one superhuman arm for minutes on end.
Creatures in diaphanous fabric swing and somersault from a gigantic
aluminum ring suspended high above the stage. Still more creatures in
shiny bodysuits cling to the huge grid of a backdrop like flies caught
in a spider web. A team of tumblers heave themselves, bladelike,
through a succession of hoops. A man in a Marie Antoinette-style gilt
frock warbles from an airborne pedestal.
Dancers in toeshoes balance on an amazing platform of light bulbs.
Giant "dralions"--shaggy mergers of Chinese dragons and lion figures
gambol about as young boys leap onto their haunches and backs. A
fellow with pink hair and an extremely chiseled physique
simultaneously undulates and juggles, the balls rolling liquidly off
his ripples in a most provocative manner.
The warmest, most accessible moments are those involving the clowns.
Joe DePaul is squat and rubbery- limbed and loves to plop himself,
babylike, into people's arms. Then there is the comedy team of Johnny
Filion and Soizick Hebert; one is a nerd, the other a persnickety
Olive Oyl. The nerd plays a mean set of drums and also the bass; Olive
juggles scarves and serves as a mock-belligerent audience revver-
upper.
Then comes perhaps the funniest and most telling sequence in the
entire show: The clowns impersonate the ever-so-esoteric acts that
have come before. The Cirque has a laugh with us at its own artistic
pretensions.
* * * * * *
LEAPING DRAGONS
By: Jack Zink | Sun-Sentinel
February 17, 2001
If you've seen one novelty act, you have not seen them all. Cirque du
Soleil keeps revealing infinite variations on the circus formula and
consistently proves that a really good gymnastic routine can never be
a cliche.
Since the company reinvented the circus in the mid-1980s, Cirque du
Soleil has vacuumed up the planet's best veteran and budding acrobats,
aerialists, tumblers and gymnasts for a series of ever-more-gloriously
overproduced shows. Thousands of buskers and 13 florid productions
later, the concept is the same but audiences' wonderment is newborn
with every performance.
Cirque's latest American touring production, Dralion, arrived at
Bicentennial Park at midweek with a youthful brigade of amazing
gymnasts, many of whom probably weren't even born when the Cirque last
played Miami 12 years ago.
Dralion prices start at $26.75 for kids and go up to $60 for adults.
Cirque always has been pricey -- We Reinvent The Circus topped out at
$29.50 when it kicked off its 1989 national tour in Miami. Really
elaborate garishness doesn't come cheap, and what would a circus be
without that?
But Dralion stops far short of bombast and is refreshingly charming at
its heart. That's because of the young acrobats, billed simply as the
House Troupe. The large group of Asian teens and preteens is the core
of this Chinese-themed production. They use the teeterboard to launch
themselves atop one anothers' shoulders. They dance three- and four-
high on a bed of light bulbs, and give new meaning to the games of
skipping rope and hoop diving.
One of the youngest, Zhao Yashi, opened Dralion's month-plus run with
a one-handed balancing act. Upside down atop a pole at center stage,
Yashi angled and contorted her petite frame into an incredible variety
of positions, her wrist and forearm struggling with the effort all the
while.
She and the others in the acrobatic troupe account for more than half
of the specialty acts, and most of its excitement. Their most colorful
moment is a semi-comic romp by furry dragons -- "dralions," the show's
namesake.
The Cirque's trademark aerial pas de deux wrapped in lycra is given
prime 11th-hour treatment, featuring Juliana Ives and Ivo Guoerguiev.
Trapeze artists Han Yan, Li Qin, Wang Dongguo and Zhang Hongwei
perform a series of double and triple flips and sideways turns. Viktor
Kee does a juggling act, and there's an interesting balancing act with
tall bamboo poles. Sprinkled between the acts are mime routines by a
clown quartet, which cleverly spoofs the acrobatics just before the
finale.
All of this is packaged in Cirque du Soleil's glossy, gaudy staging,
from a huge bronze wheel high above the stage to a panoramic back
wall. Both are used for a series of background gymnastic exercises by
a chorus that could be the main attraction at some circuses. And of
course, there is a New Age wall-of-sound musical score, as lush,
billowy and ephemeral as the clouds of artificial fog that
occasionally creep across the stage.
Cirque's 1989 effort was more modestly produced and sat about 800
people under the big top. Dralion holds 2,500 under its modern techno-
top. The acts may be great feats of physical prowess, but the fancy
wrapping obviously is enticing.
# # #
That's all for in this issue, but there's still a little bit more!
o) Issue #172, MAY 2018 - Dralion, Part 2 (2001-2003)
o) Issue #173, JUN 2018 - Varekai, Part 1 (2002)
o) Issue #174, JUL 2018 - Varekai, Part 2 (2003-2004)
o) Issue #175, AUG 2018 - Varekai, Part 3 (2005)
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COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER
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Fascination! Newsletter
Volume 18, Number 4 (Issue #171) - April 2018
"Fascination! Newsletter" is a concept by Ricky Russo. Copyright (C)
2001-2018 Ricky Russo, published by Vortex/RGR Productions, a
subsidiary of Communicore Enterprises. No portion of this newsletter
can be reproduced, published in any form or forum, quoted or
translated without the consent of the "Fascination! Newsletter." By
sending us correspondence, you give us permission (unless otherwise
noted) to use the submission as we see fit, without remuneration. All
submissions become the property of the "Fascination! Newsletter."
"Fascination! Newsletter" is not affiliated in any way with Cirque du
Soleil. Cirque du Soleil and all its creations are Copyright (C) and
are registered trademarks (TM) of Cirque du Soleil, Inc., All Rights
Reserved. No copyright infringement intended.
{ Apr.09.2018 }
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