Memory of the Circus: Inside the Cirque Archives

Memory of the Circus: Inside the Cirque du Soleil Library/Archives

“The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one’s devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas – a place where history comes to life.” ~Norman Cousins

Libraries have been described as “Medicine for the Soul.” As public libraries and museums are the memory of cultures, so can private libraries and archives for a business. A repository of history, protector of the collective memory. They can also provide the spark of inspiration.

Located on the ground floor of the sprawling Cirque du Soleil International Headquarters (IHQ) in Montréal, down a hallway between building sections and without much outward decorative fanfare, is the Cirque du Soleil Centre for Research and Documentation. Behind its double doors this library serves two purposes. One is to maintain a modest collection of books on all sorts of subjects that creators can use to spark ideas and concepts that might find their way onto Cirque stages. The second is to manage the historical assets of the company, including business records and historical artifacts.

On my wife’s and my previous tours of the IHQ we were teased with the wonders that lay beyond those double doors. Assured that if we were to venture inside it would be impossible to tear us away, even a quick peek was not allowed. It was a momentary marker on our longer excursion through the building. But for this late-April visit (as part of our CirqueCon weekend, which also provided us the interview with Cirque CEO Daniel Lamarre that appeared in our June issue #77), we were assertive (but polite) in asking to finally venture within and understand more about the Library and the role it plays in the company.

* * * * *

It is early afternoon on Friday, April 30, 2010 when we are quietly escorted through those double doors and into the Library proper. And what we see is, indeed, a working business – library! Well, actually that’s not quite true. The “official” title is “Centre for Research and Documentation” and it resides under the “Knowledge Management and Information Technologies” section of the Cirque corporate structure. The Centre itself consists of three units: Library, Records Management, and Historical Documents. They are the “integrated service of documentation and knowledge” for all of Cirque du Soleil. The library doors are open the same hours as the rest of the IHQ, from 8:30am-5:00pm Monday through Friday.

The main room, about 30 feet square, is lined on the perimeter of two sides with bookshelves, some protruding out into the room. Next to the doors are several cabinets housing CDs and DVDs. A small viewing area looks upon a flat-panel TV which is surrounded by a display of books on Elvis Presley and slapstick (acquired during the creation processes for Viva Elvis and Banana Shpeel). And along the north wall are desks where the library personnel sit. Wild Cirquey color or design elements are not much in evidence, function is the focus here.

We are introduced to Stéphane Zummo (STEF-ahn ZU-mow), a tall friendly gentleman with a French-Canadian accent. He is one of the five Library Technicians (though he suggests a more complete definition as “researcher/librarian for the CDS creative community”) who works inside the Centre. (Which from this point forward we’ll refer to by the more common moniker “Library.”) Prior to joining Cirque, Stéphane worked in the Canadian Center for Architecture for almost 9 years. “For the last 7 years,” he says, “I’ve worked here at the circus with the creators and conceptors.” Two of the five technicians are dedicated to historical and business records, and the other three (including him) are dedicated more to creations, dividing the work between them.

Information requested by the Centre’s clients is wide ranging, and covers such topics as:

  • Nature (such as the four elements-fire, water, air & earth, clouds, insects and animal behavior)
  • Patterns from everywhere
  • Architecture
  • Stage design
  • Painting, painters, contemporary art
  • Symbolism and rites & ritual
  • Arts & crafts
  • And much more.

Succinctly summing up the Library’s function, Stéphane suggests, “We are the memory of the circus.”

We start our tour with the shelves in the main part of the Library, which hold 2,230 books and 300 periodical subscriptions. Organized to the Dewey Decimal System, “This part is dedicated to serving the creative teams, production, workshop – all the people that need images in order to create their storyboards or to make their draft of any costumes.” Scanning through the stacks, we note some expected topics are well represented. There are lots of books on fashion, useful for costumers. A small section on business, a nice section on art and architecture and design. Lots of books dedicated to traveling.

We come to a smallish section about circus, including several copies of the “official” books about Cirque. But otherwise, “[There’s] not too much about circus. The big library about circus is on the other side of the street at École Nationale de Cirque. In fact we don’t need so many books about circus, it’s more about creation.” (The school (www.nationalcircusschool.ca), across the street from the IHQ, maintains a library of over 10,000 circus-related items.)

The type of user and their needs greatly influences the type of books they acquire. “Generally creators appreciate books with lots of images. They don’t like to work with digital images or [e-books]; they like to work with big books.”

“The way we develop the collection is according to the needs of the creators. We buy a little bit of everything. For instance now we are working on Michael Jackson, so we acquire a lot of books on Michael Jackson. The estate has also given us a lot of information. But it’s always according to the projects. We have a lot of shows, but also a lot of special events. [We also might] get to know that a certain person in the workshop needs certain books dedicated to a certain topic, so we are becoming used to the different topics. In this way we are more able to develop the collection.”

Separated on one shelf are a number of programs of varying size, which turn out to be from other circus shows, especially from Europe and Russia. “The artists appreciate seeing themselves in other programs,” Stéphane explains. They can also be consulted for casting possibilities and to see how acts have been presented.

The CD and DVD cabinets house almost 400 CDs and 1,000 DVDs but isn’t the whole of what’s available. “We are also cataloging our founders (that would be Guy Laliberté’s) collection which is going into his house, [so we can be] aware of his huge collection. It could be useful to borrow different books, DVDs and CDs from him.” Incorporating the Laliberté collection of books, for example, raises the number available from 2,230 to almost 9,000.

Since it caters to a special clientele, checkout policies are a bit different from what you might expect to find in a typical library. “For the creation team it’s a three-month loan. After that we call them (because sometimes they are in Paris, or in Las Vegas, or in Montreal) and ask if they still have the book. It could happen that they have lost the book, so we give them a reminder after three months.” But they let creators have books for as long as they want them.

“For employees its two weeks – no late fees, though. (Laughs) The employees really appreciate our service, because it’s really useful to have so much information [close at hand]. We also have other requests, [such as] a business request from another department.”

In one corner is a small video viewing room, one of two in the library. Connected to the TV screen by way of a switcher are several different video players – DVD, VHS, Betamax, Hi8, professional video. So almost any type of video can be viewed here. “And in the other room just beside this we have more [formats available].”

On one wall of the viewing room is a small bookcase filled with a special collection. “Four or five years ago our founder bought a special collection of books dedicated to magic. In fact, when [he] bought this, [we hadn’t started working on] Believe, that came after. This collection is very interesting, and some of the things in these books can be integrated into different shows.”

Pointing to the north wall of the main library room Stéphane comments, “Pretty soon this wall here will no longer exist; we will expand and have a special place for viewing videos and for reference.”

Wandering through a doorway at the north end of the Library we find the working offices of the library staff. There are three desks, all with various piles of paperwork, periodicals and books stacked upon them. Stéphane points out a shelf of DVDs that each have “HOLD” marked on them. These, he explains, are recordings of a French TV show that features circus acts. Creators can look at these shows for casting or act possibilities. Since these shows are not publically available the Library has them specially recorded.

It’s here that the tour takes an interesting turn, with two direct examples of how the Library helps creators. On one of the desks is a 1970 Sears Catalog. What’s that doing here? “This was for Viva Elvis. We learned that he bought all his personal stuff from Sears, so it was really useful for costuming.”

Making even more of an impression is a huge unmarked red box, about 2 feet high by 1.5 feet wide. Just trying to lift the cloth-covered box is a chore, opening it reveals a thick book almost as big inside. This, it turns out, is “The Official Michael Jackson Opus” (which you can see here ) a $250.00, 13” x 18”, 400-page, 25-pound estate-authorized book about Jackson which Cirque recently acquired. This is the kind of book that will be a good source of inspiration for creators working on the Jackson show.

But there is still more to see.

Stéphane takes us back further, to a third, unoccupied room. The quiet of the main Library fades to total silence here. These are the archives, the historical documents collection.

Here is the reason we were denied admittance on our prior visits.

He goes over to a vertical file cabinet against a wall. “We have the programs here,” he says, opening one of the drawers. Inside are multiple labeled hanging folders, each containing one or two copies. This particular drawer has copies of the Dralion program, the various editions creating an interesting case of visual multiplicity, each the same yet different. There is one copy here from each edition of each Cirque program ever produced, a total of 234 (so far).

He searches the drawers for one in particular. “For instance, this is the program for ‘La Fête Foraine’…” He pulls out a small program, in nearly perfect condition. This is an artifact from the genesis of all that Cirque du Soleil has become, the first Laliberté-managed local arts festival from July, 1982. Careful handling reveals the content reflects a small arts fair, with advertising taking up the left-hand pages and festival information on the right-hand pages (all in French, of course). One could perhaps describe the experience as similar to holding the first draft of the very first Steven King novel, or holding Bruce Springsteen’s first guitar.

Another shelf houses thick binders. Slight slivers of paper occasionally peek out from within, hints of what look to be a costume drawing here, a diagram for a stage or prop design there. “These are the bibles, the first drafts of each show is concentrated in these binders.” Some of them show their age and usage, but they all serve as direct connections back to the initial spark of the directors and creative teams’ visions. Elsewhere in the room is their collection of 530 Cirque show posters.

In another section of the room are a series of fire-proof vertical file cabinets. These house Cirque’s collection of over 200,000 photographs (in slides, traditional photos and low and hi-res digital photographs on CD/DVD). But not all the photographs are contained here, as photos from the early 80’s have been moved into a special climate-controlled vault offsite for preservation, as they have done with much of the archival material from Cirque’s early years. He opens one drawer and randomly pulls out an 8.5” x 11” page of slides. Each slide looks to be about 1.5” square. This page is from Saltimbanco; one crisp well-lit image shows a Baroque in performance cavorting on the stage.

Interestingly, though they have photos dating back to 1982, they aren’t necessarily free to use them. “The older shows are more problematic,” Stéphane says. “The first one was problematic because rights weren’t so clear and a photographer just came and took pictures.” In some cases, getting rights is still an issue.

Dominating a third of this room are a set of high-density mobile storage cabinets. Several tall wheeled carriages holding materials run over tracks set in the floor. Turning a hand crank attached to each cartridge creates an aisle just where needed, saving up to half the space such shelving would take if you had an aisle between each carriage. This is where they keep visual media – promotional shooting, b-roll, promotional roll, “that kind of stuff.”

The cabinets aren’t totally full, and the shelves are spaced wide apart horizontally to account for the different heights of the various formats stored. “We have two different format sizes,” he says, which results in wasted space. “So we will probably go with a different drawer structure.”

But where is all the video material used to create the DVDs, and the nightly recordings of shows? With 25 years of material these racks should be filled to the brim!

It turns out this collection doesn’t include the material used to create show DVDs. “There is also part of Cirque du Soleil that is called Cirque du Soleil Image (EE-maj). They are dedicated to the production of films, and in fact they have their own archive. But they are outside the building, for security purposes.” The materials here are used mostly by the company audio-visual department, which is on the other side of the wall from the Library.

But where are the videos of the shows kept? Yes, every performance of every show is taped, but not stored here. “They are stored outside the circus but we keep an average of one per month here, for casting, studio, training and insurance purposes.” The rest of the show video records are kept offsite for about 10 years and are recycled.

As Cirque has grown, so has the Library. It continues to acquire historical material, but hasn’t shed any. “From the beginning we [have] never put anything in the garbage. Even though we have a conservation calendar, in Excel, that gives us a snapshot of when we [can] throw [something] away, we [haven’t] because people want to keep their stuff.”

With 20 shows doing almost a billion dollars in sales each year, you can imagine the amount of paperwork a company like Cirque amasses each business year, including:

  • Historical records – programs, posters, film and video, pictures
  • Business records – invoices, vouchers, checks, ticket receipts, transportation records
  • Financial records – balance sheets, profit and loss statements, show budgeting and financial information
  • Human Resource records – applications, employee and payroll information

“There is a concern about money and space,” explains Stéphane, “So we have some big decisions to make. For historical records it’s obvious, but it’s more problematic regarding business records. The [quantity of] business records is so huge; a lot of boxes, a lot of things.”

Not only is space a concern, so is protecting the assets the Library already has. Referring to the photographic collection, Stéphane comments, “At some point we’ll have to digitize all of that stuff. It’s a lot, more than 200,000 [images].” The material consists mostly of slides but also includes many photographs. “We know in less than five years we [will] have to digitize everything, because the new stuff is all digital. It’s an obligation.” Including the oldest material, sitting outside the IHQ in that special vault.

“Our founder is really concerned about that. He understands that it is important. Because he is getting older also (laughs) and he is sensitive to the history aspect of the company. So there’s a big budget for it.”

As we emerge from the historical documents section and re-enter the main Library, it’s easy to imagine – a creator looking for inspiration, a costume designer or researcher searching for that perfect graphic design, a prop designer seeking information on cultural symbols, or an artist desiring to find the core of their character – sitting in one of these plush chairs, or at the nearby large dark-hued table pouring over one of the libraries volumes.

As our time with Stéphane draws to a close, we talk a bit more about how the Library sees its mission in the company. From a purely business standpoint it’s a business library with a mission to serve its clients, which include creation teams, production teams and the costume studio/workshop, as well as the marketing, legal affairs, finance and internal communication departments. “Any departments can appeal for our services!” he says.

But being the creative endeavor it is, the Cirque du Soleil Centre for Research and Documentation serves another, broader purpose. “Like I said, they always start with images. And from that they create storyboards. And from there they create different shows. It’s the images that give the first spark for every production.”

Images and ideas that often start right here.

My sincere thanks go to: Mr. Stéphane Zummo, for so graciously spending time with us, The staff of the Cirque du Soleil Centre for Research and Documentation, Chantal Côte, Corporate PR Manager,
And my wife LouAnna for putting up with my sometimes obsessive hobby.