Cirque du Soleil performers may not sleep in caravans, but pretty much everything else about that lifestyle is true. They work long hours, put their bodies on the line every day, and have to put their families on the back-burner.
It can be a lonely life. But many Cirque performers like Karl Lecuyer – playing the role of Mr. Microcosmos in the production Kurios, Cabinet of Curiosities, premiering in Toronto Thursday – have made it work. The trampolinist and father of two met his wife, a contortionist, on his last tour, and has found a way to start a family without settling down.
“I joined the circus single, then I came back home with a wife and two kids,” he says. “So it’s not true that when you’re travelling away from home you can’t build a family.”
His family is now travelling with him while he continues the North American tour.
“Sometimes the kids are with one, sometimes the kids are with the other one,” said Lecuyer, who adds that the arrangements can be challenging, but they’re willing to make sacrifices to continue doing what they love.
After nine years on the road, artistic assistant Sheryl-Lynne Valensky says Skype is the key to maintaining her romantic relationship.
“Whenever I can, we get the jet lag song: it’s morning, it’s midnight, how was your day … but you get used to it because it becomes your normal,” she says. “When I go to England and John and I have two weeks together, we pack into those two weeks what people would normally pack into three months.”
The performers get paid “more than a teacher and less than a professional baseball player,” according to Valensky. But it’s not as glamourous as people think. It’s physically demanding, they only go home a few weeks every year, and are otherwise working six days a week training and performing from morning to night.
“It’s really important to keep a life balance, ’cause if all you do is eat, sleep, work, you’ll go crazy,” says Valensky. “I think the people that stay on tour the longest and love it the most are the ones that figure out a way to have a life on tour as well as do all the things that we have to do.”
Japanese world yo-yo champion, who goes by the name Black, says it’s a job he wouldn’t trade for any other. While others go out to explore the city on their day off, Black says he uses that time to focus on improving his act.
“Now I’m a world champion, TED speaker, cirque artist, but before I grab yo-yo I have no self-esteem or any confidence,” he says. “I got this position now but it comes from a lot of efforts and a lot of help. So I don’t have a lot of extra energy to enjoy other entertainment for myself.”
With 46 artists coming from 13 different countries on the Kurios tour, Valensky says the most difficult thing for most artists isn’t necessarily jumping and flipping 10 meters into the air.
“Everyone has skills but they’ve trained a different way, they warm up a different way, so we have to find common ground ’cause we all have to work together,” she says. “We’re kind of like a mini United Nation. It’s all about negotiation, and sometimes mediation.”
Tough as it is, it’s the life head coach Alexander Pikhienko has come to love.
“I’m travelling 40 years now, I just adjust my life, I can’t stay home,” he said. “I tried, I switched to the Las Vegas division, and after two years I decided to go back to tour.”
Behind the story
Cirque du Soleil is bringing a bit of reality into their latest production Kurios, Cabinet of Curiosities.
Set in the late 1800s, the story about imagination and invention, focuses on a curious man and his journey as he “unlocks the door to a world of wonders.”
Kurios, the Quebec-based performing company’s 35th production since 1984, has gotten rave reviews in Montreal and Quebec City in the last few months.
Artistic assistant Sheryl-Lynne Valensky says they key is bringing the production back to its roots.
“We took a real time period and we sort of gave the audience something almost kind of recognizable to start,” she said. “We give them a little familiarity and then we turn it all upside down. It goes back to the old Cirque du Soleil where it’s really focusing on the acrobatics and the mechanics, rather than the technology.”
{ SOURCE: Metro News | http://goo.gl/fDxsZ6 }
